


peace

by majoramort



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blindfolds, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Oral Sex, Slice of Life, Smut, Swearing, and he is going to get it, but also sex, din djarin deserves happiness, din djarin makes me ugly cry, wow this has kind of turned into a space opera but that's okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27035791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majoramort/pseuds/majoramort
Summary: **this fic is on hiatus until further notice.It started off as a simple attraction, a silly crush on a brooding bounty hunter. But you realized over time that you would cross the galaxy for him, would cling to him through life and death. You would be fearless enough to love him.And you have no idea what to do about it.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Comments: 96
Kudos: 464





	1. keep your brittle heart warm

**Author's Note:**

> finally had the guts to post this. i have no explanation for my actions. if you know me irl and you find this no you didn't xx
> 
> title/chapter name from "peace" - taylor swift

“I’m actually really offended right now, you know.”

“Why?”

“You ditched me to hunt down a Snivvian. I told you I wanted to see one up close.” 

“I commed you to check on the child.” 

In between moments of chaos, you try to find peace. 

Unfortunately, most of your life nowadays is pure chaos. You’re sick of hearing the word ‘quarry’ and, at this point, you’re even growing sick of the green baby and his little metal ball. All you want is just _one_ day to not be chased by Imps. Or bounty hunters. Or literally anyone.

No, you don't mean that. You couldn't be sick of the kid.

Ever since you joined up with Mando, it’s been non-stop running. Granted, you knew what you were getting yourself into, but you still feel like you’re allowed to complain. The Mandalorian is the most economically-minded person you know, always thinking ten steps ahead on how to get enough credits for food, fuel, and whatever else the baby needs. It simply means that you have to work twice as hard to keep up with him. Which _sucks._ It sucks _ass,_ to be more precise. 

Of course, try telling a Mandalorian you’re tired. 

No thanks. 

Your head lulls against the back of the pilot’s seat, feet propped up on the dash. The child is in his carrier, sitting in the seat behind your right shoulder. You vaguely hear him gnawing on some detachable control, finally calm after a full afternoon and wanting more playtime. The evening sun is setting over the horizon, a beautiful mix of pinks and purples dotted with three moons.

“Hello?”

Oh, right. Mandalorian. 

“Well, he’s still here. His cold is gone. For the most part,” you reply. 

Pushing off from the controls, you spin around to look at the kid. His big eyes are glossed over, six fingers holding on to some sort of small metal cylinder. He gazes up at you, curiosity in his eyes, and begins to babble in an unintelligible baby-language. It’s _almost_ cute, and it normally would be, if you weren’t so sick of being cooped up on this ship with him. But Mando gave you very strict orders. The planet is “too hostile” to “stray from the ship” or else you risk “losing a limb” or “worse.” Once again, try protesting to a Mandalorian. 

Mando’s voice breaks you out of your reverie again. “Keep the comm line open, I might need a quick pickup.” 

“You’ve got it,” you sigh, and hear the static of the comm as it goes into idle mode. You try not to feel sad about him ending the conversation, but he has to work. 

Slowly, you get up and walk towards the kid. You lightly pull the cylinder away from him and wave it around his face, smirking at the way his eyes follow it around. For a second, you actually have a nice moment on this godsforsaken ship. A few minutes pass while you kill time waiting for any sort of distress signal to make things interesting. 

As an experienced _bounty hunter_ yourself, you’re perfectly capable of taking down targets– but rarely get to. Mando hired you to fight off any Imps that come after the kid, so now you’re a glorified babysitter/bodyguard. Sometimes, _sometimes,_ he does still let you take a job. When he wants to spend time with his weird green son. 

(You would absolutely die before admitting it to him, but you adore the bond between them.)

His weird green son that you love dearly. Yes, you love him dearly and would protect him with your life. You didn’t think that about the stinker at first, but he really does grow on you. Right now he’s tired and recovering from a mild cold, which just makes things dreadfully boring along with having no one to talk to.

_Beep. Beep. Beepbeep._

Eyes rolling, you shuffle back over to the controls to check the scanners. It’s usually nothing when they go off and you’ve hidden the ‘Crest fairly well under the canopy of a dense forest to wait for Mando, but there’s no harm looking– especially with Imps on your ass every other day.

And… it’s not nothing. It must be the ‘other’ day.

It’s three incoming TIE fighters.

“Shit! Shit shit shit,” you breathe out. You immediately start flipping switches and pushing levers in a tizzy, only stopping once to turn around and make sure the child is secure before punching the ship into the sky. His big eyes are as wide as this planet’s moons, ears twitching at the now audible screams of the TIE engines. With no time to buckle in, the headrest of the pilot’s seat thumps against the back of your head. 

Now is probably a good time to remember what to do in this situation. You haven't been in a full-scale ship chase in years– you’re sure Mando sat you down and lectured you about it at some point, but when he talks for more than one sentence you generally just pay attention to how damn sexy his voice is, which is really unfortunate right now. 

Okay, focus. 

One. Secure the child, check. Two. Put as much space between you and them. Not check, but it’ll have to happen while you take care of Three, contact Mando and tell him where you are. The TIE fighters are fast and nimble, and your ship is very, very old. It’s taking all you have to stay ahead of them, and you’re already dreading telling Mando that you’re going to have to refuel sooner than anticipated after burning half a tank on some fucking Imps. 

But… contacting Mando is going to be a little bit harder since the ship is designed to be piloted by someone with Purgill-tentacle arms. The comm switch is just out of your reach. 

“Baby, hold on,” you shout through gritted teeth. You’ve never been the best pilot in the galaxy and Mando’s skills run laps around yours any day, but you really have no choice but to wing it right now. Throwing the ship in a sharp left, you’re able to use the momentum to shoot out of your seat for a second and open up the one-way channel to Mando, taking it off of standby. You fall back into the seat with a hard _oomph_ and, yeah, you’re going to have some aches later. 

“Mando, hey, do you read me?” The Imp fighters are shooting green lasers at you while you duck in and out of the trees, rapidly approaching a mountain range. You wait a second before trying him again.“Mando! Dammit, I am not kidding right now, where are you?” 

You throw a glance over at the comm and almost crash the whole ship. It’s blinking blue. That son of a bitch has his communicator turned off. 

Oh, you’re really going to kill him this time. After constantly telling you to never ever turn off the ship’s comm, he goes and does this. You could be dead. He could be dead. Your rage screams that he _will_ be dead. Screw Beskar being Impenetrable. You’ll wait until he’s asleep, then shank him through the cracks–

You’re getting uncomfortably close to those mountains now, which dwarf all four ships. But you’ve been plotting to kill your crewmember for too long, not paying close enough attention, and you’ve forgotten to activate the shields. So maybe Mando will kill you before you can kill him because the ship is definitely taking more than a few hits right now. Despite your growing anger (and fear), something in the back of your mind wishes he was here now, nudging the controls out of your hands and sliding into the pilot’s seat. 

His presence is strong and comforting, and you would give anything for him to be with you right now, but that’s not currently a choice.

“Sorry, Baby, it’s going to be a bumpy ride for a minute or two,” you quip over your shoulder. Not getting a response, you look back and the child has closed his own carrier. You inwardly curse at him, but you know that if Mando was here you would be doing the exact same thing, choosing to be anywhere but the cockpit. 

Before you can even turn back around, the ship makes a very not-good sounding groan and tilts heavily to the right. You let out a bleat as the right wing scrapes the treetops. If the ship had paint, it would be scratched– so it’s a good thing the ship is too old to have more than a few splotches of paint remaining. When you’re able to get the ship flying somewhat parallel to the ground again, you feel how all of the bones in your neck had popped at once, and add it to the list of things that are going to hurt later. 

You pray to the stars above that you don't crash.

You make it a point to shove all yearning _out_ of your mind– panic has gotten the best of you and now you’re just straight up pissed. The comm system shows that Mando is still inactive, and unless a military-grade pilot materializes out of thin air, you and the baby are about to bite the dust. You just can’t outgun three TIE fighters on your own, and you can’t leave the planet to make the jump to hyperspace without Mando.

Actually…. No. You cannot. He would _not_ understand, and would probably think you’d stolen the ship and the baby. Then you’d have to deal with Imps and a Mandalorian at the same time. You shake the thought out of your head as soon as it comes. You won’t betray him like that.

You’re about 500 yards from entering the mountain line when another idea strikes you. Maybe you don’t need a miracle, after all. Just enough adrenaline to kill a Bantha, and you’re good to go. Mentally keeping track of the closing distance between where you sit in the cockpit and the solid rock coming right at you, you wait for the last possible second. 

Outside of your line of vision, you miss the comm channel lighting up green for ' _connected'_ _._

Gulping and clenching your teeth as hard as physically possible, you scream out, “I swear to FUCK Mando, if we die I’m going to find the kid in the afterlife and we’re both going to haunt you forever.”

Then, you leverage your whole body weight into pulling the throttle and watch as you skid to a complete stop mid-air, halting probably two feet from the side of a mountain. The TIE-fighters are not so lucky, two of them immediately going _splat_ against the rocks with a deafening crack. You immediately pull the ship up and over and manage to take the last one by surprise, gunning it down with the front blaster cannons.

You’re dizzy with relief. That kind of completes step two of the Uh-Oh Emergency plan. Time for step two and a half. Land the ship. 

You manage to find a clearing semi-big enough and hidden an acceptable amount to mask the ship and land rather roughly, but nonetheless triumphantly. Once you feel the landing gear click into place, you realize that you’re essentially laid over the controls right now, your ribs screaming in pain from being thrown forward against the metal. So much for not buckling in. 

You turn around in the pilot’s seat to grin at the kid sheepishly, and grimace at the pain in your ribs. “Another happy landing, eh?”

The kid squawks back at you, and it’s only quiet for a couple of seconds before a modulated voice cracks through the comm. 

“So, are you going to tell me why I’m being haunted forever?”

You nearly jump ten feet in the air. 

* * *

When Mando gets back to the ship, he’s fuming with anger. You really don’t know why (or who at), but he has a shrieking Snivvian in tow so you figure it can’t be so bad. 

You were wrong. 

He all but kicks you and the kid out of the cockpit, banishing you to the small room on the main floor where you sleep. It’s more of a closet, really, but it has a mattress and some in-wall storage for your stuff, so you call it your room. It would’ve been Mando’s, but he chooses to sleep in the cockpit, and you don’t ask any further. 

Your client was on-world, which means that Mando flies fairly low to the planetary surface. It’s a multiple hour journey to the city from where you picked him up, so you feed the kid some dinner while you wait for the Mandalorian to get over his fit. You don’t even risk leaving your room when you feel the ship stop for him to offload the carbon-frozen Snivvian, you just sit there fidgeting until he comes back and you can breathe again.

It’s kind of hard to breathe with the pressure that your rib injury has created, but you can’t bring yourself to check for bruising yet. There’s no E-bacta left on the ship, and you didn’t have the guts to ask him to pick up some in the city, so you’ve resigned yourself to suffering through.

Mando’s mood hangs over the ship like a raincloud.

By the time he gets back from delivering the Snivvian and shuts himself into the cockpit, the baby is asleep again. Carefully lifting him off of your lap, you seal him into his carrier, soundproofed so that he’ll sleep through the night. You make your way into the atrium of the ‘Crest, finding a meal pack and a bowl because you _know_ Mando hasn’t eaten, and something inside you feels raw from subconsciously– or maybe consciously– worrying about him. 

That’s the thing, with Mando. You always find a way to be mad at him, find something about him to rage at privately. Sometimes publicly, to him. But it always fades away after the heat is gone. It subsides into guilt for ever being angry, festers into restlessness as you worry over him. You’ve always been good at reading people, but Mando is the definition of a closed book. And you? You know it does you no good to worry about him, but like the kid, he grew on you. 

You’ve probably spent more time with Mando than any other person. Maybe not _with_ him, but you cohabitate a ship meant for one person, and you share responsibility for a green baby on the run from psychopaths. In that time, you’ve realized that he frequently skips meals when he shouldn’t. So even if the rational side of you (if you can call it that) is still furious about the comm incident, there’s a part of you that feels drawn to him like a magnet. That worries over him when you fall asleep at night. And it’s that part of you that always makes sure he eats after pulling in a quarry.

You pour hot water over the meal pack in the bowl and shove a spoon into it. After the first few attempts at bringing Mando his food in the cockpit, you’re an expert on climbing a ladder one-handed. You became an expert, of course, only after spilling boiling hot water all over yourself. You go slower than usual, as any sort of quick movement causes a stabbing pain in your ribs. 

Outwardly, you’re still sulking over his earlier stunt, but, in respect for him and his Creed, you knock on the durasteel frame. No response is a good response, so you hit the control panel with your free hand to open the doors. Before you even see him you say a silent prayer that his temper has subsided, that he won’t just kick you out again.

“Delivery,” you announce, before breathing, “Oh, wow.” You walk forward to the controls, standing directly to the right of the Mandalorian in the pilot’s seat.

Your frustration with him fizzled out when you saw what’s outside the ship.

Through the front port, the sun has almost set over the horizon. Days on this planet are very long, many hours longer than the Coruscant standard day, so the sunset is long and drawn out over the evening. You thought it was beautiful earlier when it started, but nothing compares to how it looks when the sun has almost set. The pinks and purples are the richest hues you’ve seen in months, with faraway stars beginning to twinkle in the deep blue sky above. Red waves appear to float outward from the last sliver of sun still visible, and it looks like something out of a high-dollar painting that you could never afford. The treetops glisten like they’ve been rained on recently, and you can see forward for miles.

“I brought you, uh, some soup?” You turn to Mando– to find him peering up at you– and thrust the bowl into his chest, already looking back out at the sunset. A faint crackling noise comes through the modulator, which you all but ignore. 

“Is that a question or a statement?” He asks, sitting the steaming food down on his lap. 

“More of a speculation, really. Wasn’t paying all that much attention when I grabbed it. But it has liquid and chunks, so, soup.” A beat passes between you and Mando while you’re still enchanted by the scenery, and he clears his throat. 

You lean forward on your tiptoes over the controls, ignoring the protest of your aching body, and see the moons barely visible in the night sky. They’re _huge_ , though they’re currently just faint outlines of purples and oranges.

“I had those guys refuel and patch up the ship. We’re heading to Nevarro tonight. Get some sleep.” You want to protest against his parental tone, but he’s more talkative right now than usual so you’re more taken with relief that he isn’t so damn angry anymore. You don’t even question who ‘those guys’ are, because you don’t want to risk setting him off again.

No, really, you had heard him punching durasteel up here earlier. Any amount of civil talking is a major improvement. 

And you’ll pay more attention to ‘those guys’ in the future. 

“Good, I’ll do that.” Your voice is airy and the colors of the sunset are overwhelming, and you’re beginning to feel resentment creeping up. Resentment for yourself for caring so much about him and his stupid temper. For having to be nonchalant around him all the time because anything else would be mortifying and horrific. For being angry earlier not because he had his comm off, but because you could have died and he would’ve never known that someone out there cares about him. 

You hear your name rolled over a voice, rough like sand and rocks, from somewhere to your left. 

You care about him, deeper than you would really like to admit to yourself, but fuck does he get on your _fucking_ nerves. 

You have every intention of turning and snapping at him about how I Am Just Trying To Look At The Sunset On The First Actually Nice Planet We Have Been On In Weeks, but you stop with your mouth open the instant you face him. 

The Beskar is reflecting the sunset, and the way that the colors dance over the metal is kind of… hypnotizing? Beautiful? You don’t know the word exactly, but you find yourself once again mindlessly staring. 

Hey. Let’s be fair. You had a stressful day. 

Well, it was more like a stressful ten minutes. But it was a _very_ stressful ten minutes. So you deserve some time to just relax and stare off at shit, okay? 

Mando repeats your name, slower this time, and you realize that you were staring into the T on his helmet. Where his eyes _probably_ are– there’s really no way to be sure, but you’re fairly certain he’s a human man and not a Geonosian or something. 

You hum questioningly, trying your best to act collected. 

“I need you to leave,” he drawls. Hurt pangs across your eyes for a split second. He must see it, because he quickly adds, “So that I can eat.” 

You instantly feel like an idiot. 

“Oh, right, uh– yeah. Um, of course, because. Helmet, eat. You need a mouth. For food. That’s calm.”

A second passes until Mando’s head angle just slightly to the side, and you can see your stupid face in the reflection. 

That’s….. Calm? What? 

“I’ll be going, then. You know where to find me,” you rush, as you stiffly walk back towards the ladder, cursing your own dumbassery. You don’t want to leave him, but you can’t bear another second in his presence. In any sort of battle, you can be fairly calm and collected, but you have completely lost control here. Your soul hurts a hundred times more than your ribs.

“Hey, wait,” You hear Mando say from behind you. Your mind screeches to a stop. He isn’t exactly known for being wordy, but you fully expect him to flat out bully you for your behavior today. Everything about you has been… off. Starting from the moment you saw that he had disconnected his comm.

You’re too afraid to turn around, or even move an inch. The back of your neck tingles like he might be staring at it. 

“Thank you.” He states it plainly, and you don’t know if you’re imagining the weight of the words hanging in the air between you. 

“You’re welcome. _Butit’sjustsoup_ ,” you say defensively. It’s something you say almost every time you bring him a meal. ‘It’s just some bread,’ or, ‘it’s just a glass of water.’ Tonight it feels different, and you blame it on the super-charged day you had, your feelings for him starting to become something that you can’t ignore around him anymore. 

You can still feel his eyes on you, long into a pause, when he says, “Right.” 

Your muscles loosen up and you scramble down the ladder. At the bottom, you sink down on the metal floor and hold your head in your hands. 

What the shit? What the hell was that? Your brain just put you through about eleven different emotions over bringing your _employer_ some soup. That you apparently weren’t even sure was soup? 

Along with the tiredness and general discontent for working conditions, it’s been a real problem since you signed on. The problem, that is, being the pull. That’s how you got into this situation, where you acted like an idiot and are now horrified on the floor of his ship.

When you first met him you weren’t intimidated. Most people are, with his reputation preceding him, but you couldn’t find it in you to be scared. Out there, in the vast expanses of space, there are a million other things that are more worth the energy of being scared over. A man in a metal suit isn’t. 

So you treated him like an equal. A much better equipped equal, who was arrogant and sharp like a blade, who was the most stubborn business partner you’ve ever had. You go months at a time only having him and the kid as friendly life-forms to interact with, and the kid can’t even speak your language. So you had a lot of time and a lot of attention to pay him.

In that time, you may have accidentally developed somewhat of a crush on him.

Also, you’re an adult that rarely ever gets to see other adults. He’s also an adult in incredible fighting shape with a sexy-ass voice and cape. Do the math.

This is bad. Very bad, especially when _did you mention_ that there were no other people around and you get fucking lonely sometimes? And it’s not like a man molded from Beskar is very cuddly. So it became a problem that causes you to act like an idiot sometimes. 

You pull yourself up and head towards your room. You move mechanically, checking on the kid, then grabbing a towel and heading back out of the room, hand cradling your side. You need sleep desperately, but first, you need to clear your head. 

* * *

Your eyes are trying to glue themselves shut as the water runs over your body in the tiny refresher shower. It’s barely wide enough for you to turn around in, but the pressurized water feels so good on your stiff back that you don’t even care anymore. As soon as you got under the hot spray, it was like a six-hour adrenaline high came crashing down on you. 

You make a mental manifest of your aches and pains, a habit first developed in the early years of bounty hunting. The sides of your hips are sore from being tossed around in the pilot’s seat, and your neck is killing you from your speedy takeoff and the jolt of being blasted by a TIE. 

The hot water stings against your ribs, which you figure isn’t such a good sign. The light in the fresher is low, and you didn’t look in the mirror before getting in the shower, so you haven’t seen them yet. When you finally muster the courage to look, you can honestly say you expected worse. 

The area is swollen in many places, tender to the touch. You consider yourself lucky the skin didn’t break, but the garish purplish-blue bruises blossoming across your ribcage make you feel not-so-lucky. If something is broken, you’d have no way of really knowing for sure. But it certainly feels like _everything_ is broken. The fact that you were even walking around earlier is astounding to you. 

It’s not anything you can’t handle, and you’ve certainly had worse before. But you’re so damn tired from making sure the kid is fed and socialized (and worrying about the kid’s dad) that you don’t even know how you’re going to suffer through this without an E-bacta shot. The pain only gets worse every hour, and the more you move, the more aggravated it gets. 

E-bacta has to be stolen, at least when you're hurting for credits this bad. And if Mando isn’t up for it, you’ll get it yourself. Twenty cases of it.

Leaning back against the shower wall, you painstakingly take a deep breath, and let your mind relax. And wander. The shower inside the ‘Crest is really the only place that you truly feel alone, the spray making a curtain between you and the rest of the galaxy. The sound of water beating down makes you feel alone with your thoughts, blocking out the perpetual hum of the engines that you’ve come to associate with the baritone of Mando’s voice.

You imagine today going differently– first the day completely without the Imp run-in, then with it. But this new time, Mando came back and you weren’t hurt. The ship didn’t take any damage and he was proud of you. You imagine what his smile might look like under the Beskar, the warmth of him under his armor as he embraces you, and your hands–inevitably– begin to wander. 

Carefully lifting an arm up, you slide two fingers into your mouth, visualizing yourself pulling his gloves off with your teeth. You’ve seen his hands in passing only a few times– enough to see the tanned skin underneath, longing for their touch later. You suck on your fingers for a second before releasing them with a wet _pop_. 

Working around your ribs is hard, but you _need_ something right now. You’re determined to make it work, and angle so that your ribcage isn’t against the wall, feet braced on the wet floor.

One of your favorite fantasies of him would fit perfectly into the events of this day.

You imagine him coming up behind you in the cockpit. He would bracket his hands on either side of the controls, boxing you in, forcing you to lean back on him. In real-time, your other hand goes up to cup one breast, toying with the nipple, imagining him slipping his hand under your shirt. You think that they’d be calloused from the manual work he does– rough against your soft skin. 

With one of his hands fixed on you, he would let the other one drift lower, whispering lots of _good girls_ and gentle praises for your work fighting off the Imps earlier. He would tell you that you _deserve a treat for being so good._ And you would take it. His hand would unfasten your belt, pop some buttons open, before hovering in wait for your approval. 

In your experience with any sort of sex, it’s been rough, mean, and fast. You like to imagine that Mando wouldn’t be like other bounty hunters you’ve been with– he can be rough outside, but he would treat you with so much fucking _respect._

He would get your approval– and fast– before slipping his fingers delicately past your waistline and underneath your panties. He would move slow, so slow, holding you, cradling you. Relishing in the moment.

Your own hand, wet from your mouth, imitates the fantasy Mando as he teasingly dips his middle finger into your slit, finding it searingly hot. Your head lulls against the wall, or against his shoulder. You imagine him _hush_ -ing you as you lean more weight back into him, as he drags his finger up and down against you, groaning at your wetness.

One of his fingertips would catch you just right on an up-stroke, your legs twitching from the delicate touches right on your clit.

The shower water beats down on you, makes your ribs weep from the intense pressure, but you can barely feel it anymore. Your own fingertips move diligently against your clit, in the way that he would _know_ you liked. You could practically hear him chuckling in your ear as you come undone. He would have to grasp one of your hips to keep you from bucking forward, eager for him. Trying to get his fingers inside of you. 

You move your finger lower down, and it easily slides right into your already dripping pussy. Your other hand flies up from its position on your breast to cover your mouth. The shower might mask some noises, but it’s not completely soundproof, and you would _die_ if Mando heard you. 

Though... in your fantasy, you started moaning the second he first touched you, letting him know just how much you wanted it.

He would take his time, rocking his finger in and out at an unhurried pace, before you started begging him. You add a second, _real_ finger in, faster than the fantasy can catch up. And start rocking them in, out. In, out. His hands would be bigger than yours, you would feel the stretch of your cunt accommodating for him. 

Your fingers start to work faster, a desperation building in your stomach. You sacrifice your other hand, choosing instead to bite down on your lip to keep quiet, while it goes down to join the other one and circle your clit. 

The increased pressure feels divine after having such a tense day. It loosens your aching muscles– you haven’t been able to help yourself out lately for a bunch of dumbass reasons that you can’t even remember right now. 

You imagine him telling you that your _pussy is perfect_ and that you’re _soaking wet, huh?_ His fingers would brush against your g-spot and you would yelp and he would say _you like that?_ _You think you’re up for taking my cock?_ And now you can’t tell if your eyes are watering in the fantasy or in real life, because the thought of him is that. Damn. Good. 

You choke down another moan–about to consider adding a third finger– when you’re jostled by the reverberating grumble of the engines coming alive and taking off, and you very suddenly remember your rib injury. You feel a sudden sense of emptiness as your hands fly up to brace on the walls, and you almost double over from the pain. 

Well, shit. That kinda killed the mood. 

He couldn’t have waited a few more measly minutes before deciding to leave the planet? 

You weakly punch the panel on the wall in frustration to off the water, the telltale _creaks_ and _hums_ of the ship accelerating creeping into your brain. The interruption of your fantasy session has aggravated you, and now you just want to go to bed. The metal floor is cold against your feet as you heave them out of the stall, wrapping yourself up in a towel and leaning over the small sink.

Do you even have the strength to confront Mando with your feelings? The unfortunate downside of that helmet is that you never know what he’s thinking. The upside is... well. You can’t really think of an upside right now, to be honest. Except maybe the voice modulator. You secretly think it makes his voice low and sexy. 

You wipe a hand across the mirror, clearing off enough of the steam to see your face and stare directly into your reflection.

You’ve been sneaking off to the shower for weeks now to scratch the itch that he’s created. It was like a fancy drug– it worked the first few times to suppress whatever it was that you were feeling, but now you need more, and more, and more… And you can’t give yourself more. Not without giving yourself to him. And you can’t even imagine him ever seeing you in that way.

Sometimes, secretly, you suspect he _does_ value your presence as a friend, and not just an asset. A crewmate. You don’t know what to make of those moments but keep them very close to your heart.

You survey your features, taking in the slight drooping and purple bags around your eyes. 

Every day, you wake up early and run diagnostics on the ‘Crest, check up on the baby, and research info on the quarry. Put in the extra effort to take some weight off of his shoulders.

And do you know how hard it is to wake up before a Mandalorian? Yes, yes you do. _Very_. 

But you do it anyway because you live for the warmth in your chest when he comes into the cockpit and finds you, the way your heart rate skyrockets when he lays a hand on the back of the pilot’s seat. The way his fingers graze your lower back as you shuffle past one another to switch out. And when you climb down from the cockpit, going to find something to eat, you live for the way you have to focus on taking deep breaths and grounding yourself. 

Squinting into the mirror, you grab out a small tub of moisturizer from the storage space. You tiredly screw off the top, scooping a dollop out onto your fingertips.

It’s time to accept the facts. You have an ever-growing crush on Mando, nourished by literally everything he does. You definitely cannot bring it up with him, or he will laugh your ass all the way off of the ship. And then you’ll never see the baby again, which is a thought you can’t bear. And if he doesn’t laugh at you, then something worse could happen. He could say nothing, choose to ignore it, and then you’d have to live with that. You’d probably end up leaving from embarrassment alone. 

So telling him is not an option. 

But he’s not _just_ sexy. If that was all, then there would be no problem. You know that he cares deeply for the kid, feels some sort of moral obligation to do what’s right. You know he’s been at odds with himself for some time, that he’s conflicted about his Creed and how it affects those around him. You see how he values life, the comical way that he detests droids, the care he takes when he cleans the intricacies of his weapons after a mission. And you see how he notices when he’s opened up too much, how there might as well be a wall of Beskar slamming down between you when that happens.

“This is the way,” you grumble to yourself in the mirror, wishing you could shove the words into his face. You’re done with your routine and you place the tub back where you got it from. You may be nearing despair, but you’re still overwhelmingly exhausted and in pain. While you get dressed, the hyperdrive makes a faint whistling sound in the back of your realm of awareness as it primes itself. You ball your old clothes under your arm and making off to open the door.

Except, you don’t. It falls open. And you fall down. 

The ship makes a grotesque whining noise that hurts your ears, and a sharp pain erupts on your left brow as your hands and knees hit the ground. “Karabast,” you whisper. You must’ve hit your head on the doorframe. Okay, this is fine– except you can’t see anything. 

Your senses slowly return to you and you register that all the tech has deactivated. There’s no beeping of random machinery, no light flickering out of weird corners, just… silence. And peacefulness. And honestly, you could go to sleep on this floor _right now_ , please. You’re woozy and are barely registering your other pains right now, only feeling whatever happened to your head.

You sink all the way to the floor, lying on your back and staring up into the darkness. You're a firm believer that there isn't anything wrong with being a little dramatic from time to time. Especially when you might have a few broken ribs... and now brow bone.

Your daze lasts for about thirty seconds, because Mando is always just one step behind you today, ready to yank you from peace. And sleep, and orgasms, and all that is good in this world. You hear your name being called from somewhere in the general direction of the ladder to the cockpit, about ten steps away. The voice is strained, and a few things seem to happen all at once.

One. You sit up too fast and get a head rush so bad that you wouldn’t be able to see a thing even if the lights _were_ on. 

Two. You feel sticky wetness trickling down from your left eyebrow, and try to investigate it but then realize that the lights aren’t on. 

Three. You realize that the voice is expecting an answer, and it sounds vaguely like it could be Mando but without so much roughness. 

Weird. 

“Over here,” you squeak, turned towards where you think the voice is coming from. “I’m on the ground.” 

“I’m coming,” Mando answers, and you don’t even have the capacity right now to mentally laugh at that statement, because if anyone’s coming it sure isn’t you. “Don’t move. I think I can find you– heard you bang something really hard.”

“My head. I think… I think I’m just going to sleep down here. No need to worry,” you answer. 

Without warning, you jolt as two hands find your shoulders and grasp them firmly. He reassures you softly, saying, “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.” You take a deep, shuddering breath.

“Yeah, figured. I just can’t see anything right now,” you say, trying to crack an awkward smile even though he probably can’t see you, either. “Care to, um, share what happened?”

“Tried to fire up the hyperdrive to make a jump. The whole ship lost power,” he muses. The sound of his voice is heavenly, being the only noise on the whole ship right now. His hands are still sitting heavily on your shoulders. “Shit. The diagnostics ran fine earlier.” 

“I think,” you start, “That we may have taken a hit to the hyperdrive today? When I was trying to outrun the TIEs. I felt a big hit to the back left. Could’ve been the hyperdrive,” you admit. 

You have to accept that he’s going to kill you. 

Without raising his voice, he states, “And you didn’t tell me.” 

Yeah. He’s going to kill you. You immediately go into defense mode again. 

“Hey, you said the ship got patched up and the diagnostics ran fine. It’s not my fault everyone missed it.” It is absolutely your fault, but you’re too prideful to admit that. “Besides, it’s not like you’ve been in a very approachable mood.”

A silence passes between you, and you’re about to apologize for being so blunt before he stops you. One of his hands stays on your shoulder, the one closest to him, while you feel the other one slide down and wrap around your arm over your sleeve. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry for my temper,” he says, and something feels weirdly off. No, not off… but different. You don’t know exactly what it is, but he’s been through so many moods just today that you’re struggling to keep up with him. “But it is still your fault for not at least making a note on the ship log.” 

You roll your eyes in the dark, confident that he can’t see you, and reach one hand up to rub your eyes. 

“So, what, are we just stuck floating through space now?” That would monumentally suck, especially with no power. Everything would be cold… and sad. 

“No, we’re in orbit.” He answers shortly, but his hands are still resting on you like you’re going to float away at any second. You feel a thump on the floor to your left and you think he’s sitting next to you now. “Life support backup kicked in. If I can get power back on then we can get back down to the city.” 

“Cool, cool.” You’re fairly calm for a minute before furrowing your eyebrows (which really hurts) and asking, “Do you… have a plan for that?” He chuckles deeply and you feel it go straight down to your core, the residual effect of your shower.

“I was going to use one of the power cells we stole off Cantonica a few cycles back,” he states as if it's obvious. 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, oh.” He must be in a better mood because you thinkhe’s teasing you. “I was about to do it when the hyperdrive blew, but I came down when I heard you. Didn’t even stop to grab my helmet. So if the power miraculously comes back on, you’re going to have to close your eyes.”

You know in your heart that Mando just tried to crack a joke, but you really didn’t hear anything past ‘helmet.’ 

Suddenly, it makes so much sense. You thought you had just hit your head really hard and were imagining his voice being different, but he just isn’t wearing his helmet. His voice is… clear. Not as rough as it is with the voice modulator. It’s somehow sexier and ignites back the fire that was put out when he turned on the engines.

You’re fucked. 

You’ve turned so that you’d be staring directly at his face if the lights were on, and you’re fighting every single muscle in your body to not reach out and touch his face. You want to run your hands over him, touch his hair. Find out if he has a beard. What his skin feels like under your fingertips.

You hear your name, and realize he’s probably concerned that you’ve passed out. Honestly, you aren’t sure that you _haven’t_ passed out. All of your sensibilities have been fried. 

“Right. I’m good,” and because you have no more inhibitions, “Do you possibly think that you could get some E-bacta while we’re there?” 

You can’t see the face of confusion that he makes, the way he instinctively leans in closer to you. 

“For your face? We have stuff for that. You don’t need E-bacta.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s for my ribs. I didn’t buckle in before pulling… uh. Pulling a stunt today with the ship.” You can feel his disapproval radiating at the idea of you misusing his ship. “I got a little beat up. They could possibly be broken. But I’m not a doctor, and we obviously don’t have a medical droid, so. Please?”

You can hear him breathing deeply, and it’s such a serene noise that you’re about to demand that he never ever puts the helmet on again. His touch lightens on you like you’re more fragile now than you were five seconds ago. 

“We have another shot of E-bacta.”

“What.” You feel betrayed. He had told you that he used the last one for a nasty knife-wound that a quarry gave him. You saw it yourself, approved the use of the supposed last injection. If you had known there was another… You wouldn’t be in this sort of pain right now. Hell, you might have even gotten off tonight. 

“I keep one as a precaution. For emergencies only.”

“Isn’t the whole idea of E-bacta that it’s _always_ for emergencies only?” Ha, got him. 

“Maybe. This _is_ an emergency though. I’m going to go to the cockpit. Wait down here for me and I’ll call for you when I have my helmet back on.” 

You nod, before remembering that he can’t see you. “Okay.” 

You feel his hands leave you, and get the sense that he’s standing up, beginning to walk away. 

“Wait!” His footsteps stop. “Can you lead me to the ladder? I don’t think I’m the most balanced right now.” 

He starts walking back towards you, and you hold your arms up, hands palm down towards him. Your knuckles are tickled as they brush up against a soft fabric, feeling the hardness of his body underneath his shirt. 

You’re lucky he can’t see you blushing right now. His hands find yours, and they’re warm and soft and dwarf yours and you have another thing coming because he is _also_ not wearing gloves. He must've been preparing to go to sleep for the night You grab onto them firmly and pull yourself up.

“Fucking, ow,” you slip, as your ribs creak and hips groan. 

He is silent as he leads you gingerly across the ship’s atrium, connecting your hand with the side of the ladder. 

“Will you be able to find your way up?”

“Yup. Sure can,” you answer, and you lean up against the wall of the ship with your eyes closed, nearly falling asleep as he climbs up the ladder and bangs around in the cockpit for a minute. You’re honestly put out when you hear him shout for you, making your way up the ladder in the pitch black, half-asleep.

You make your way into the cockpit, padding barefoot over the metal floor. Mando is crouched under the controls, hooking up the power cell. 

“We only have enough reserves to start the engines and make a slow descent. Do you need lights?”

“Guess not,” you say softly, sliding into the co-pilot’s seat. The cockpit is lit up by the stars and the reflection of light off of the planetary surface. You can see around, but not well. Mando gets the power cell hooked up and plops into the pilot’s seat to set course for solid ground, the constellations dancing in their reflection on the Beskar helmet.

The ship rumbles alive, a sharp reminder of the pain in your sides and your brief stint earlier.

You’re falling asleep once again when he comes and crouches in front of you. He has some sort of med-kit in his hands, and he’s asking you something. 

“What?” You’re kind of drowsy right now. You’re in a lot of pain and just wish he would give you the stupid E-bacta and let you sleep. 

“I said, are you nauseous, have ringing in your ears, or blurred vision?” 

“Hmm. No. Just a hell of a headache. Why?”

“Wanted to rule out concussion before you go to sleep,” he says, and his tone is almost soothing. He does have the helmet on but isn’t wearing gloves and all of the Beskar and his boots have been deposited on the other side of the cockpit, leaving him in a basic black long sleeve shirt, pants, and some socks. He looks domestic, or as close to domestic as he can be.

Opening the medkit, he pulls out a tube of antibiotic cream and some bandages. While he wipes away at your eyebrow wound, you worry that your breath might start fogging up his helmet. He’s _very_ close to you right now, and he’s touching your face with his bare hands, and you are not equipped to deal with that right now. Not equipped to feel how gentle he is with you, spreading the cream over your skin and applying the bandage.

If the lights were on, you would be doing this for yourself right now. You want to pat yourself on the back for telling him to keep the lights off.

Mando digs further into the medkit and pulls out a nondescript cylinder package, pulling off the cap. From inside, he shakes out a short syringe and pulls off the needle’s protector. 

“Let me see.” He’s waiting, as still as a rock, visor angled up to your face.

You’re too stunned at this side of caretaker Mando that you don’t even process the words that he’s saying.

“Your ribs. Let me see,” he repeats patiently. 

“Oh, um, okay. Sure,” you stumble out awkwardly, reaching for the hem of your shirt. 

You have to be actively aware of remembering that you are not wearing a bra, and that right now would be a _very_ bad time to accidentally pull your shirt up too far and flash him. 

Managing to pull it up just enough to where he can see the extent of the bruising, you watch as his shoulders sag and one of his hands reaches towards you. Then it stops, hanging in midair.

“That bad, huh?” You’re smiling even though you probably shouldn’t be right now, trying to diffuse the tension between the two of you. His hand moves again, reaching down and moving your shirt back in place, covering your skin once again. 

“Where do you want this?” He asks, looking up at you through the visor. 

“Let me do it, please,” you croon, making grabby hands for it. Screw not being embarrassing in front of him. You want to sleep, and the thought of another person giving you a shot freaks you out. 

“You really shouldn’t be giving yourself an E-bacta injection,” he murmurs, his voice gravelly again from the presence of the voice modulator. 

“Bullshit, I’ve done it before.” You guess he’s probably giving you another ultra-parental look, and that he’s definitely getting too good at being the kid’s dad, so you _don’t_ look up at him as you take the syringe out of his hand and quickly plunge it into your side. “Ah, that’s the stuff.”

You feel the medicine start instantly working, a warm numbness taking hold of you. 

“Can I go to sleep now,” you say in a monotone voice, passing him back the empty syringe. 

He’s just… staring at you. Like he can’t believe what just happened. Like you didn’t fight off three TIE fighters, probably break a few ribs, bust your eyebrow, and inject yourself with a very experimental drug.

“All in a day’s work!” You exclaim out loud, giggling. 

“What are you–” he starts, before shaking his head at the ground. “Let’s get you to bed.” 

He helps you down the ladder, and you could actually believe for a moment that you had died and gone to heaven. The E-bacta is quick and effective pain relief, but also tends to temporarily dull your intelligence. He corrals you into your room, feeling his way around as an effect of having no lights. 

Your feet hit the edge of your mattress, and you let go of him to drop down onto your soft blankets. Sitting there with your eyes closed, you feel him slowly backing out of the room. 

But something grabs a hold of your heart.

It’s the part of you that longs for him, that wants him to feel safe and loved and protected and cherished. That worries for him when he’s a little too reckless and comes back with too many injuries. That wants him to stop sleeping in the cockpit, to share your tiny mattress with you. 

The E-bacta has brought that part of you to the surface, has beat down your ‘rational’ side until it lives in the back of your mind, making it watch as the scene unfolds. 

That part of you takes control and makes you whisper, “Stay.” 

He has to have heard you. He still has the helmet on and you know that that thing has an extended range of hearing because he’s used it _against_ you before, but the rational part of you has now left the whole ship because you add, “Please.” 

The sound of the engine rumbling grates against your eardrums and you’re straining to hear if he says anything– or if he’s even still in the room. Too long has passed and you’re almost certain he’s left. You’re getting ready to lay down under the blankets when you hear him. 

“Okay.”

It’s so small that if you hadn’t been expecting a response, you wouldn’t have heard it. But you can’t miss the sound of his knees hitting the ground, or the clang of metal on metal as he puts his helmet on the ground. 

Your mattress shifts as he moves to scoot up it, sitting up at the end of your bed, careful to lean up against the wall and not sit on your pillow. 

Every single one of your muscles is as stiff as can be right now with the painkillers running through your bloodstream. You move to lay down, pulling your blankets up over your shoulders. 

He’s tense. You can feel it intuitively, and whatever is possessing you right now makes you move closer but it also takes over him and makes him scoot further down. 

You navigate the dark until your head is being pillowed on his arm, your hands curled up between you, trying to stay separate but desperately wanting to ball in his shit. This is a whole new side of Mando you’ve never seen, but this is a whole side of you that he’s never seen, and neither of you can even _see_ the other. 

Neither of you knows where this is coming from, but you’ve been wanting something like this for so long that you could kiss whoever invented E-bacta, the destroyer of insecurity.

There's electricity in the air and you can feel his breath, warm against your face. Laying with him, in your half-asleep state… it feels like being home, and the feeling bubbles up until you _have_ to say something.

“Hey,” you whisper. “The whole family is in here right now.” Because you’ve just remembered that the baby is still asleep in his carrier in the corner of the room, and it’s a sweet thought to you, the idea that you’ve become a family. 

You don’t even wait for him to answer. You don’t even believe he’s really there with you. You’re already dreaming, floating away on some sort of cloud. 

Just as you’re finally, _finally_ about to fall asleep, you feel fingers gently running through your hair, stroking softly. 

“I know,” he chokes out.

* * *

When you wake up, the lights are on. You roll around for a moment with your hands over your face, wiggling around on a mattress that seems _a lot_ warmer than normal and ribs that don’t hurt– and you remember last night. 

Your eyes fly open and you shoot straight up, but the Mandalorian that you’re looking for isn’t there anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahahahahahah oops.
> 
> references:
> 
> [Purrgil](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Purrgil)  
> [E-Bacta shot](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/E-Bacta_Shot)
> 
> -
> 
> I'm currently planning for this to be about 4 chapters, about the same word count or more as this one. I wanted to start off pretty lighthearted with this one but rest assured there will be plenty of Space Pining with a happy ending (I promise!)
> 
> I have a tumblr! If you view it on desktop mode, I have my update schedule posted in my left sidebar. 
> 
> sunsetkenobi.tumblr.com
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are very much appreciated!
> 
> <3


	2. ocean wave blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You get a taste of what it's like when Mando relaxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please put your seatbelt on, this is an emotional rollercoaster. 
> 
> it was my goal to get this out before the premiere of season 2, and i have achieved that goal by 5 hours. so ha.

It’s nighttime on Nevarro, and you are reveling in the billow of your newly-acquired black cloak.

You are _not_ copying Mando. But if you happen to look cool like him, then that’s just an added bonus.

The backalleys are quiet, tranquil as you make your way back to the ship. Anyone else would naturally be uneasy with so many sketchy figures ready to jump out of the shadows at any time, but the blaster at your side is a massive confidence inflator. Plus, you’re beginning to build up a bit of a reputation here. 

You’re the one who runs with the Mandalorian, when previously you had only been an above-average bounty hunter. More of an assassin, really. Either way. It’s refreshing.

It had been two nights since he shared your bed. 

You’d tried not to be hurt when you woke up and he wasn’t there. It made sense. The ship had refueled and already landed back on Nevarro by the time your E-bacta shot wore off, and he had cargo to unload. You would’ve done the same thing. But it was the way he’s barely even _acknowledged_ what happened between the two of you that’s really getting under your skin. 

That whole night has come back as somewhat of a blur for you, truthfully. Instead of a clear picture, only flashes come back. Hitting your head. The lights going out. A man of metal kneeling before you, stars reflecting off of his helm. The warmth and weight of his arms as he held you while you fell asleep. 

There’s really only so much emotional availability to be expected from him, though. And he seems to want things to go back to normal, which is better than it could’ve been, so you’ve gone along with it– barely seeing him in the past couple of days as you get ready to go out on another weeks-long expedition to the far reaches of the galaxy to do… whatever it is that you two do now. Hunt people? Look for tips on the kid’s family? Something like that.

You’ve decided that now that you’ve had a taste of what it’s like to be with him, to be near him, you can be sated for a while. The problem can… go away. For as long as possible.

You readjust the bag you have slung around your body, filled with random tools and weapons refills that you got off a black-market dealer in a seedier part of the city. It’s heavy and grating down into your shoulders, which are no longer feeling the body-numbing effects of sweet, sweet bacta.

The Razor Crest comes into view as you slip out from behind a building. There’s really no reason to be stealthing around, dressed in all black with a hood _._ But once again, it makes you _feel_ cool. You push down the lump that forms in your throat when the languid movements through the dusky atmosphere feel like walking in your past body. They feel like becoming a ghost.

“Space assassin turned babysitter,” you scoff under your breath, flipping your hood off as you walk up the extended ramp of the crest and lifting it when you get to the top. 

It seals you in. You know Mando’s onboard, practically having a sixth sense for whenever he’s near.

You shrug the bag off, methodically stowing the supplies away into whatever storage compartments are free, trying to keep similar items where they were when he first hired you so that he can find them again. It’s the polite thing to do. 

You get lost in thought, humming to yourself as you sort through the collection of various wrenches in a random drawer. Behind you, two heavy boots land on the ground, and you drop at least three of the metal tools you’re holding. 

You turn around, and he’s there behind you. Looming. You don’t know how he’s moved so fast, but he’s standing close to you. Almost uncomfortably close, and you think he knows it, by reading his body language. You’re kneeling on the ground staring up at him, dark cloak fanned around you like a Loth-bat. 

“Oh, uh. Hi.” You quickly turn and busy yourself with scooping up the dropped tools, eyes wide and cheeks flushed. So, the problem isn’t gone. If your reaction to kneeling below him is _anything_ to go on, the problem is most definitely not gone. 

“Hey,” he says lightly. You push yourself up from the ground and turn, and he’s backed up a few steps. “I got you something,” he blurts, visor trained acutely on your face, head tilted slightly. 

“Me? What?” You know he had also gone out today but thought that he was in charge of wrangling up food and other… shit.

“Come see.” And he’s already halfway up the ladder before you realize you should be following him, that you’re allowed to follow him. It’s too much like the other night, this time with the orangey artificial lights glowing down on you.

You kick the drawer closed behind you and crawl up to the cockpit, and immediately have a green baby scuttling up your leg. 

“Hey, baby!” The kid is in an agreeable mood today, so you can sweep him up and hold him close to your chest while he tugs on your hair with three little fingers. Mando is standing with his hands braced on the headrest of the pilot’s seat, facing it towards you. An invitation to come and sit. 

You use the baby as a tension-breaker, carrying him with you as you plop down and Mando spins you slowly to face forward and points at something. 

“I moved the audio comm to be under the holo-projector. So you can reach it easier.” And sure enough, there is it. 

Well, it makes a lot more damn sense for it to be _there_ instead of halfway to Coruscant.

There’s a faint noise over your shoulder, and you realize he’s trying to stifle a laugh. Shit, did you say that out loud?

“That’s not really a gift, if we already had it,” you say, leaning to look up at him. He levels his gaze with you, or maybe at the child. You can’t really tell.

“Look to your left.” And sure enough, when you look to your left, there’s a brand new seatbelt designed to hook around the pilot’s shoulders and across their waist. You slowly turn back around to face him, eyes narrowed. 

If it were possible for him to convey a shit-eating grin through his helmet, he would be doing it right now. His shoulders are slightly shaking, a testament to what little control over his amusement that he has. You roll your eyes and stand from the seat, sidestepping out from behind the controls. “Oh, everyone’s a comedian.” 

“I just want to make sure you don’t get hurt again,” he says, and you feel a pang in your chest. Even though his tone makes him sound like he’s teasing you, his words strike something you’ve been working very hard to keep pushed down. 

“Well maybe don’t leave me alone on a hunt next time,” you say, play-punching his arm awkwardly. Except it hurts. A lot, because beskar is not exactly the most pillowy substance in the world. You hand the baby off to Mando, turning around so that he can’t see the way your face twists up and you mouth the word _ouch._

“I’ll think about it.”

And it’s so simple now, so comfortable. Yet it burns in you, the fire that you keep warm for him, and you have to suffocate the flames before they turn into a wildfire. 

“By the way,” he starts, “I brought you and the kid dinner. Something that’s not freeze-dried or actively living.” 

This takes you by surprise. “From where?”

“Karga’s. He was cooking when I went by his place.” 

You almost burst out laughing. “Greef Karga _cooks?_ Somebody needs to call the authorities. That can’t be him.” From all of the few times you’ve met the man, he never struck you as the homestyle cooking type. 

“Yeah, that was my reaction, too.” He’s calm, rocking the kid in his arms. Said kid is cooing up at Mando, waving his hands wildly. “I thought… I thought maybe we could all eat together.” 

You’re glad you’re still facing away from him because you can feel the heat rising to your face, which his thermal sensors would absolutely pick up on. In fact, they might be picking up on it anyway.

Where is this coming from? The three of you have never shared a meal together. You turn back around to face him, hands rising to frame your hips.

“But you can’t eat _with_ people. It’s against your code, or whatever.”

No one in the cockpit moves for a slow, unsteady moment. Even the kid feels the energy in the room deflating and calms down his rapid squirming. 

“You’re right.” His statement finally pierces the air, and you know that somehow you’ve pushed a button that you’d forgotten existed. A distant voice in your head whispers a reminder of his decades spent estranged from others because of the helmet rule. “I’m sorry I brought it up.” 

Your mind doesn’t seem to be able to process the situation. 

“No, don’t be sorry. I’m just trying to– you know. Help you stick to the Way.” 

He’s moved to cradle the baby in the pilot’s seat, hunched over. The baby has latched on to one of Mando’s gloved fingers, a heartwarming sight. You hear a rumbling that vaguely resembles his voice, but it comes out marred. You furrow your brows, trying to figure out what he said. 

“What… What’d you say?” You’re tentative with your question. His visor faces down at the child for a breath before he lifts his head to stare out of the front port.

“I said that I left the food on the lower deck. You’ll find it.” 

And then the voice of clarity comes out of the shadows from the back of your head to the very forefront. And you want to do a massive facepalm. You didn’t mean to… shut him down like that. 

This is _not_ the way.

“Do you, um, want me to take the kid?” You can’t leave him like this. You can’t. 

“No.” 

“Oh. Okay. Well. You know where I’ll be.” You back out of the cockpit and he makes no move to indicate that he even heard you. 

As soon as you leave, the durasteel doors slam shut, forming a barrier between you and them. 

You make your way down the ladder, stopping halfway down. You have to catch yourself from falling down as you finally work out what he was murmuring. 

_I don’t want to._

* * *

The sky outside is completely dark, but you’re awake because your sleep cycle has diverged completely from a normal person’s. 

You sit outside of your room, leaning against the inside hull of the ship. You need some _me-time._ Not hot, heavy, secret me-time, but time to sit and be alone with your thoughts. 

You’ve actually already taken a shower tonight– though this time, with a blank mind.

You still can’t justify leaving the crew. It’s something you toss around every single time you make a fool of yourself in front of Mando, which, graciously, does not happen that often. But often enough to be something that you have a full pro/con list for. 

The pros include that you’d be free of your attachment to him. Something you haven’t let yourself have to another person in multiple years, not since– 

The cons include losing the child. Losing the thrill of being on the run from Imps again, the intimate hand-to-hand combat with wanted criminals. Mando. Coming back to him. Him coming back to you. Your… family. The word feels familiar as it tumbles through your mind, like revisiting a memory that you didn’t know you had forgotten. 

You lean your head against the durasteel wall. Your legs are stretched long before you, now clad with loose black pants and a matching shirt. Soft. Comfortable. A stark contrast to the weapon you hold in your lap. 

It’s a barbaric blaster, something that you don’t often bring out, instead keeping it hidden with your other things. For an _emergency._ A weapon that’s really more of a relic of your past life. It’s… old. Powerful. 

As such, it requires meticulous, routine cleaning so that it doesn’t misfire if you ever _do_ have to use it again. You turn back to it, already carefully having detached the tibanna gas cartridge. If there is one thing that you know to be absolute about weapons, it’s that you do not want to store explosive gas in a vessel designed to… well, _explode_ it. Especially for long periods of time.

“When did you get a DX-2 disruptor pistol?”

Thank the maker you detached that cartridge because you would’ve reflexively shot him. 

“You have _got_ to stop sneaking up on me,” you groan. Your stomach is tight as he stands at the bottom of the ladder, clad in his black undersuit. 

“When do I sneak up on you?”

You choose not to gratify him with a response. To your surprise, he waits a moment while you run a brush through the barrel before he walks to open the main weapons storage panel. Peeking up at him stealthily, you watch as he grabs his pulse rifle and a cleaning kit. And plops down onto the ground right in front of you. 

If he wasn’t sitting cross-legged, your ankles would be brushing his. You take a massive gulp of air and focus on your disruptor pistol. 

“So, when _did_ you get it?” Mando is opening his own cleaning kit, the pulse rifle balanced across his knees carefully. He detaches the fork from the top, gracefully setting it next to him on the ground. 

You find it really unnerving that you can’t tell if he’s looking at you or not. 

“I- I got it… many years ago.” It comes out shaky, unsure. But it’s the best answer you can give him and isn’t a lie. 

“You know those are illegal in all civilized systems, right?” You can’t help but roll your eyes and laugh. 

“Yeah, duh, I know. Thanks,” you say. “That’s why I don’t go waving it around in public.” He must be feeling better than he was earlier, judging only by your conversation. It had taken Mando a few weeks to get used to having someone to talk to on the ship, and a few weeks longer than that for him to get used to actually talking. But when he finally did, you enjoyed talking to him.

And not just because of his sexy voice.

You just count yourself lucky he seems to have moved past what happened earlier– though you still feel the pinprick of an urge to apologize to him for being insensitive about his Creed. It’s still slightly tense between you, the soft light flickering on his silver helm.

Lifting your chin towards him, you regard his own weapon. “So when did _you_ get an Amban phase-pulse blaster?” Hey, if he’s going to use technical names, then so are you. You’ve always just called your own pistol the _Dust Machine_. “Which I might add, is equally as illegal as mine.”

“I’m a Mandalorian,” he says, slowing his movements to a halt. “My weapons are an extension of my body.” You raise your eyebrows appraisingly. 

“Huh. Intense,” you respond.

“To tell you the truth, I can’t really ever remember not having it,” he says. “ As soon as I proved I understood what it does, it was put in my hands.” 

His demeanor doesn’t give off much, just… hard stoicism. Reserved sadness. You want to lift his helmet, see his face, hear his voice unfiltered. To kiss his cheeks, his forehead– what? 

You don’t know how to respond to that. You can’t honestly say you’ve ever been the best with words, and you know he wouldn’t be very cool about taking his helmet off so that you could kiss him. So it’s time for an icebreaker. 

“Mine is cooler than yours,” you blurt. 

Okay, maybe not _that_ one. But it’s too late now. He’s definitely staring holes through your face. 

“What?” And dammit, your brain always seems to shut off once you start vomiting words, but you want to cheer him up, make him forget whatever it is that’s got him in a mood tonight. 

“Yup. See, yours might be able to fire at a longer distance, but mine is more portable. You can hide it under your clothes. So it’s inherently cooler.” You’re trying to sound proud and maybe a little bit teasing, and a real smile comes to your lips before you can stop it. Mando seems to contemplate your assertion before answering. 

“Mine disintegrates people,” he eventually says. 

“Mine does too!” He leans in almost imperceptibly at your defensive expression. 

“Mine also _electrocutes_ people.” 

This time you don’t hide your teasing attitude. “That’s not the rifle. That’s the attachment. So it doesn’t count.”

“Hm. So how many shots does your _pistol_ fire before it overheats?” 

“Usually about seven,” you say, drawing your legs in towards you. It’s not something that you can say proudly, but you do know what you _can_ brag about to him. Because you trust him enough to divulge information that you’ve kept secret. Because he’s sure to appreciate it. “At one point I used A DXR-6 disruptor rifle instead of a pistol.” 

That got his attention. The DXR-6 was, if possible, more deadly than the weapon that you hold in your hands now. It rivaled Mando’s own pulse rifle. At a much bigger size than the pistol, it fired longer distances, did more damage. You almost regret your time spent in its presence, for all of the weight that you bear mentally because of it. 

“I could never see you using that,” he says, shaking his head. His voice is soft, his gloved hands delicately reassembling his rifle. “You’re much more the type to just set a regular blaster to stun.” 

It’s such a refreshing statement because it’s true _now,_ isn’t it? Putting your own weapon back together, you place it back in a nondescript case, laughing. 

“Well, I can’t just go around dusting people with an illegal rifle like a lunatic. I have a kid to take care of.” And the pinching is back, the memory that you can’t place on any one timeline, a vague idea of a found family. He just hums solemnly in response, and the atmosphere of the room fades into something restful.

“Hey,” you start. “Thanks for bringing me food. It was nice.”

His helm is pointed up at the ceiling, one leg outstretched, the other pulled close with a strong arm resting over his knee. 

“You’re welcome. I’m glad it wasn’t poisonous.” You gape at that, drawing your knees to your chest.

“There was ever a doubt?” Your face is glowing with playfulness. 

“No. I made him test it beforehand.”

“My protector,” you fawn, throwing a hand over your heart. You like to imagine that he is smiling along with you right now. A gentle, hidden smile. 

“Don’t get a big head. I mostly did it for the kid.”

“Speaking of, where is he?” Mando just points upwards, then folds his hands together on one side of his head in a pantomime for sleep. 

There are times when you are stricken by him. When his rough exterior meets whatever his interior is. Something lively and soft. He doesn’t show it often, but often brings it out when he knows that his moodiness has created a ridge that needs smoothing. 

But tonight, you had created the ridge. Oh… well. He seemed to want to meet you in the middle of it. Mando’s never been super open to talking about his Creed- past the fact that it exists and he must adhere to it religiously. 

“Okay.” You suddenly realize how tired you are, too. “I need sleep. When are we heading out next?”

“I was going to put in the coordinates and leave after I checked on you. I assume you’ve gotten everything you need.” 

You nod in confirmation. You’ve spent ample time making sure you have ample amounts of everything you could need. Shampoo, toothpaste. Clean socks. Very important. Every time the 'Crest takes off from Nevarro, there is a question as to when it will touch back down. But…

Check on you? He’s checking on you? Is that what this is?

“You’re checking on me?” Fuck. You need to stop talking when you’re tired. His helmet does that slight tilt that makes your insides melt. The one mannerism he has that indicates with absolution that his gaze is trained on you. 

“Yes. I was short with you earlier. I- I wanted to be sure that you were okay with taking off on another trip,” he says, and the vocal modulator almost does a good job at disguising the raw texture of his voice, stabilizing whatever trembles he has. 

You don’t know it at the time, but he is very, _very_ grateful for the helmet, for a barrier so that he can say things while his face is behind a wall of beskar. If he didn’t have it, if you could see his face… After decades of being unseen, being seen is a terrifying thought. 

“Why wouldn’t I be? I couldn’t leave you two.” 

You hope it’s the right thing to say.

He rolls his neck a few times, relieving some tension. “You should get to bed.” 

Smiling softly, you move to push yourself up off of the floor. Mando seems to move at light speed, and he’s in front of you with gloved hands extended, a silent offer of help. And it’s such a reflection of the other night that it takes you by surprise for a brief moment, causing you to lose your breath. While the other night was foggy and cold, tonight is warm and real. You take his hands, averting your gaze from the T of his helmet. 

“Thanks,” you say, still holding his hands in yours. You think you hallucinate one of his thumbs stroking the back of your hand. 

“You’re welcome.”

“Well, goodnight then,” you croak. His hands are strong and kind against yours.

“Goodnight.”

You feel his gaze tickling your back as you seal yourself inside your room, grabbing your pillow to scream into it silently.

* * *

Waves of heat cut through your skin. Your eyes squint shut against the desert, tan sand covering the landscape for miles into the distance to meet with violent, jagged edges of cruel mountains. 

The sky is white, or it must be because you can’t see past the blinding sun overhead. You have to catch yourself before falling over from dizziness and feel a pang of confusion at your torn clothes, your hands coated in dirt and blood.

But you can’t feel them. 

When you get your footing, you pull an arm up to shield your face and whip around. Nothing. A dark voice calls your name from behind you, and you freeze before slowly turning to it. 

A monstrous creature, no longer a man, hovers before you. Cold yellow eyes drill into your skull. Nothing is right about this moment, about this setting. About the ghost appearing in this place.

_Did you think you could run from me?_

The voice is like crushed glass in your ears, the sun’s light amplifying a hundred times with each syllable. You fall to your knees, sand entering the cuts on your hands. 

_Did you think I wouldn’t find you?_

You choke out a sob, the tears burning on your face, hair sticking to your neck. 

_You don’t know what I can do._

A pointed, bony hand lifts your face to the sky, and his eyes meet yours again. 

_Look._

You’re afraid. You don’t want to look. You want to close your eyes and hide–

But the hand leaves your face and you’re staring out across a sea of deep, endless blue. The sky is still blinding, the tips of waves crystallizing in the gleam and piercing your sight. 

You rise to your feet. You’re on a small square of sand, enough to keep you above the water. What happened to the desert? The mountains? It looks as if the world was overtaken by a great flood. 

You sense a presence at your feet, a slight pressure. A glove that looks slightly familiar. You bend to hold it, feel the leather fingertips in your hands. Another metal plate washes onto your small island, something heavy. You know it shouldn’t have been able to float. 

You raise your stare to the horizon, the glittering waves. Something round is carried between them, being pushed through a current towards you. 

With the drop of your heart to the ground, you dive into the water. You can’t feel it but know somehow that it’s freezing, causing your joints to lock as you gasp for air, pedaling against the current towards it. 

But you can’t swim any further. The distance between you and the rounded object is increasing by feet, by miles, until you’re pulled under the surface by a powerful force. 

_Open your eyes._

At first, you don’t see anything. Pure darkness clouds your vision, spans as far as you can imagine the universe can reach. 

Then you see him. A Mandalorian. _Your_ Mandalorian. He’s stripped completely of his armor, his defining helmet being his only identifying feature. You reach toward him, but he sinks further down below the waves. Or higher above. You don’t know which direction is up anymore, don’t know how to kick through the water towards him. 

_This isn’t real._

But it feels real. You see him, slipping away from you. Water fills your lungs as you scream for him. 

_Wake up._

He’s disappearing. The cold sets into your bones, freezing your outstretched arm as it reaches for him. 

_Wake up._

_Wake up._

The voice is different now. You can _feel_ it against your skin, hot and present. Clear. Real.

_Please._

_Wake up._

“Wake up. Please.” 

And the water drains away, a million gallons of it in each millisecond until you’re laying on your mattress in the Razor Crest. Gasping for breath, still thinking you’ve drowned, you shoot straight up.

Right into beskar.

“Ow, fuck,” your voice creaks out. A shaky laugh of relief resonates in front of you from the Mandalorian kneeling at your side, his ungloved hands on your shoulders. 

You’re still panting, but are slowly coming back to your own body. Free from cuts, from dirt. Warm. _Sweating,_ actually. 

“Hello?” You can’t think of a coherent thought, experiencing mental whiplash from being sharply awakened. 

“Hi,” Mando says. “Bad dream, huh?”

“...How’d you know?” You’re rubbing your forehead from where you smacked into his.

He removes his hands from your shoulders to run them across his thighs. “You were screaming. Very loudly.” 

You seize your gratuitous forehead-rubbing. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Not just sorry, horrified that he heard you.

“It’s okay,” he says, and his voice, the sound of him alive, sounds like a warm embrace. “I’m just glad you aren’t hurt.” Your mind flashes back to your nightmare, reminding yourself that no, you aren’t hurt. You’re alive. You’re on the ‘Crest, flying through hyperspace. Mando isn’t hurt, he’s here with you. 

Slowly, you turn your palms over in your lap. They’re free of cuts, if not a little rough from doing work around the ship. 

“Thank you.” You look directly at his face, his silver helm. “For pulling me out.” 

He sinks down further to the ground, softly saying your name. 

“You were… Calling. For me. In your sleep. That’s why I thought– I thought that something happened to you.” You can’t tear your gaze from his, and you feel innately that he isn’t looking away from you, either, even as a blush blossoms across your cheeks. 

“I am sorry,” you say, because you truly are. “I didn’t mean to, if I scared you, or anything like that.” His energy is practically dominating the air in the room, covering every surface. 

“It’s okay,” he repeats. “Were you… dreaming about me?” 

“I don’t remember,” you answer. In truth, you remember almost every second of it. You remember every nightmare that you have. “I just know I was scared.” 

“You’re safe here.” One of his hands rests on the covers next to yours, and you grab it. 

“I know.” You fill the two words with the fervor that they deserve, trying to communicate your gratitude to him. His visor holds your stare for a beat longer, squeezing your hand, before he lifts to stand. You don’t let his hand leave yours, pulling him back down. 

“Stay.” 

You both feel it, the reflection of the other night’s events– this time unhindered by the numbing effects of E-bacta, the lights on and illuminating you both. You’re surprised at how easily you ask him, a testament to how comfortable you’ve gotten on this ship. With him by your side.

But he must feel comfortable with you, too, because he takes measured, careful movements to place himself beside you. He extends an arm in your direction, laid behind your pillow, and you contemplate the consequences for a second before thinking _screw it_ and melting down into his side. 

His body doesn’t tense up. He doesn’t push you away. With your head on his chest, you can hear his heartbeat. 

“Do you want the lights off?” 

“No,” you blurt. Turning the lights off would mean that one of you would have to get up. You can’t risk moving from this position, breaking the delicate understanding between your bodies. His chest shakes you as he chuckles. 

“Okay,” he says. “Sweet dreams.”

You want to punch him again, but one of your arms is trapped against his side, and the other has found its way across his stomach. So you don’t. But you let his warmth seep through your veins, a fire against your heart. 

And you fall asleep again, for the second time this night, tranquilly. 

* * *

It becomes somewhat of a routine between you. 

This set of hunts is fairly easy, if not time-consuming. You find yourself traveling through hyperspace a lot, planet-hopping to chase down one quarry or another. But you don’t mind it. Because though the nightmare comes back– different every night, but still with the same premise– you face them with a Mandalorian by your side. 

You still wake up before him every morning to go through your routine. He sleeps with his helmet on, which you know can’t be comfortable, but you don’t know if you should say something about it or not. For now, it doesn’t seem to bother him that much, so you leave it alone. 

Sometimes, if you wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, he’s already comforting you. You find that he has a hard time ever falling asleep. 

On these nights, you’ve begun to let your conversation wander past _sorry_ and _it’s okay, go back to sleep._ You start to learn more about him, and him about you. You tell him about the songs from your childhood that were sung to you when you couldn’t sleep, the more humorous nursery rhymes. The way that you’ve always had gripping nightmares since you were young. You talk about the things that make you happy. You divulge that you have a sweet spot for Jogan fruit, and he tells you that his guilty pleasure is Corellian fried ice cream. After you laugh at him for five whole minutes about this fact, he playfully pretends to scoot away from you on the mattress. But you pull him back in, and he doesn’t protest. 

You’re falling for him. 

It’s kind of a mystery to you, why he lets you snuggle up to his side every night. But you know with certainty after three weeks, when you arrive at your room to find him already under your blankets, that your attraction to him has become something different entirely. You are finally seeing the man you knew was under the helmet all along. 

The kid is still around at night– you haven’t forgotten about him. For the most part, he sleeps in his floating crib at the foot of your mattress, unless he falls asleep somewhere on the upper deck. In which case you do _not_ chance waking him back up. 

In the evenings, before you go to sleep, you have dinner together. Yeah, that’s right. After feeling so bad about how he doesn’t ever get to eat with other people, you thought of a compromise. If he’s going to be back before nightfall, you start forcing him to immediately shower the day’s grime off while you entertain the kid on the upper deck. Then you head back down the ladder to eat. Well, you and the baby eat. He sits with you. You talk while the baby babbles at him. It’s… surprisingly domestic. Then you make sure he eats while you shower, and then it’s generally time to go to sleep anyways. 

On one night, in particular, you’d walked in clean from the shower to find him with your blankets pulled up over his chest, helmet facing towards the ceiling in slumber. You’d just turned off the lights and curled up next to him. 

But you don’t know where any of this is going, because if you didn’t mention earlier: you are _falling_ for him. You don’t feel like an employee anymore, but you know you are. You can’t envision him taking things further between you. But it’s okay because even though it hurts you deeply to not be able to express your feelings for him, you have a best friend now. Someone to confide in, to hold you through your nightmares. 

It’s not a problem if you don’t let it be one. 

Right?

This evening, Mando came back from a hunt deep within a jungle planet to the Crest, parked in a small landing area on the edge of an even smaller town. Even on the ship, you were sweltering, clothes sticking to your skin in the humidity. You can’t even imagine how he managed, with all of the layers that he wears. When he came back with no quarry in tow, you knew it was going to be a rough night. 

You’re sitting with the kid on the lower deck playing peek-a-boo when the hatch opens and he stomps in, covered in mud. It’s late, and you weren’t expecting him to be back for another day at least. He strips off his boots and cloak before they’re able to track dirt everywhere. 

“I’m back,” he grunts, before hanging his weapons and stomping into the refresher. 

“I can see that,” you breathe to yourself as the door slams shut. 

You guess that he’s going to be scrubbing at his skin for a very long time and elect to put the kid to sleep, bringing him to rest in the cockpit out of the wake of Mando’s temper. You slither back down the ladder, the water of his shower still running, and lock down the ship. He’s probably not going to want to fly anywhere tonight, so it’s best to make sure there won’t be any disturbances from locals. 

Then you curl up in your bed with a book. 

Yes, a book. 

A relic of old civilizations– papers bound by glue, adorned with ink. It’s your favorite, and you keep it stashed with your things for some good late-night reading. The spine is beaten up and creased, the cover slightly mangled from having read it so many times, but you haven't _reread_ it in many months so… it’s time again.

Just as soon as you get comfortable, letting your head sink into your pillow, the lights go out. 

_Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding._

The door to your room opens, and you look with unseeing eyes in its general direction. You feel the Mandalorian’s presence in the frame, strong and… angry. You slide the book slowly to your right, off the mattress, and listen as he takes a few deep and concentrated breaths.

“I’m not putting the damn helmet back on tonight,” he says. His clear, unfiltered voice reverberates through the room, bouncing off of the durasteel walls to pierce you. 

“Is that why… you turned off the lights?” You know it’s a stupid question, but you’re vibrating from hearing his voice again after weeks. 

“Yes. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah, absolutely,” you answer, probably too fast.

The mattress shifts as he lowers his weight to it. You scoot to the side to accommodate for him, sensing him as he lays down. You’re still sitting up with your eyes open, _still_ not able to see anything, and lower your head back to the pillow while he slides under the covers next to you. As you feel your way through the dark to him, your eyes fly open even wider.

The helmet is evidently not the only thing he elected not to put back on tonight.

Your fingers are splayed open, palm resting gently over the smooth, warm planes of his chest. 

You feel like your soul is floating above your body. Like this cannot possibly be happening, like you’ll be able to reach down and pinch yourself and will wake up in your own body, almost a month in the past, with your hand pressed down over your mouth in the shower. 

Your muscles are frozen in place. 

“I had a hard day.” His voice is barely audible, but your senses are overwhelmed by it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You ask, matching his soft tone. 

“Not really,” and you can feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. “I’m going to have to go back out tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“I wrecked a speeder on a chase. I couldn’t keep going while it was dark.” It doesn’t really answer your question but asks a new one.

“Are you hurt?” Your fingers press down into his chest as you lift up as if to look at him, and you feel one of his hands come to grasp your wrist, smoothing his thumb around the tender skin on the inside. 

“No, I’m not hurt. Thank you for asking.” You let yourself sink back down into the mattress. Leaving your hand on his chest, you sidle up to him like usual, basking in his heat despite the raging temperature outside. 

It gives you a second to think. Why is he doing this? Over the past few weeks, you’ve started to show yourselves to each other in a new way– but only really on a personal level. Not this. Not… physically. 

The hand of his that isn’t cupping yours moves up to stroke through your hair, and you let your eyes slip shut. Even if you don’t know how to comprehend that you’re laying in bed with a half-naked Mandalorian, you have to admit that it’s the most comforted you’ve been in a very long time. 

“I wanted to come back to you,” he says.

“Come again?” You, for lack of a better word, squeak the words out. 

“When I was in the jungle. I had to drag myself back through the mud for miles. But I wanted to come back to you.”

It’s all too overwhelming. They’re words that you’ve been imagining hearing for weeks, no, _months_ , and you don’t know what else to do except to rise again, letting your hand slide against his chest, up to his neck. Your thumb finds the softness of his face, and you don’t even stop to think before leaning down to bring your lips to his.

The kiss is soft, his lips smooth and languorous. His hands immediately lift to tangle gently in your hair, returning your intensity. Your head feels like it’s spinning, cloudy, and full of this moment. 

He moves to deepen the kiss, pulling your head closer to his. At the first feel of his tongue on yours, you let out a soft moan– really more of a mewl. He seems to preen at it, dropping a hand to cup your neck. 

You break free for air, letting your fingers explore his face in the dark. Does this go against his Creed? Even though you can’t _see_ him, you feel like you’ve never seen him more. 

You get the answer to questions asked long ago: his hair is very soft, cut short, and still damp from the shower. He has a bit of a beard that prickles against your face as you lean back in to kiss him again– but it’s in the most delicious of ways that you can’t even seem to mind it. Except that he pulls your face from his. 

“You don’t have to do this,” he says. You’re trying to very _nonchalantly_ push your way back towards him, almost drunk on the taste of his lips. 

“Do what?” You press a kiss into the palm of his hand and feel him exhale deeply. 

“This. Any of this. If you don’t want to–” 

“I want to,” you interrupt, funneling confidence into the statement. “Do _you_ want to?” 

It’s quiet in the room for a few long, tense seconds. 

“Fuck, yes,” he says, and something seems to explode in you. He pulls you back down to catch your lips in a forceful kiss, wrapping his hands around your hips to pull you over on top of him. 

With elbows framing his face, you situate into the position he’s put you in. You’re straddling his thighs now, something that you never thought you’d actually get to do. You use this new position to butterfly soft kisses on his neck, the smell of him clean and inviting. His hands tangle through your shirt, lifting it to expose your midriff into the darkness. 

He’s grasping you like you’re going to float away off of him, like you’re a figment of _his_ imagination instead of the other way around, as you move down from his neck to his chest. Trying to touch your lips to every part of him. You have to slide further down his thighs to reach, and he lets out a groan so sudden that you snap your head to look up at him reflexively. 

One of his hands grips tighter into your hair, the other one fisting the blanket next to him. And oh. Oh. You know why. You _feel_ why. 

Your chest is pressed directly into his lap. You whimper at the feeling, the hard outline of his cock pressing up into you. Some deep, deep part of your brain practically salivates at the sensation, and you hook your fingers under the waistline of his pants before you can stop yourself, continuing your trail of kisses down his lower stomach. 

“Wait– wait,” he says, and you patiently halt where you are. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.” You contemplate it for a second. 

“Mando,” you start. “Is _this_ too much for you?” You ask the question while wiggling your fingers around their hold on his pants. It’s not a condescending question in any way– something in you has genuinely taken over at the sight of him so taken apart. Half-naked. The feel of his bare skin against yours being enough to pull every single hot, desperate thought you’ve ever had of him directly to the surface.

“Fuck, no, keep going,” he drawls. You smirk at how needy he sounds and continue to inch his pants down his legs, feeling your way around his body since you can’t see it. 

Letting go, you sneak your hands up, finding his cock hard against his stomach. He reacts immediately, groaning and bucking up into your hand. 

“ _Please,_ ” he says, and it’s so gorgeous that you want to cry. 

“Please… what?” Wrapping your fingers around him, you’re mentally glad that the lights are out to disguise your blush and the slight way your mouth hangs open. He feels… _big_. Thick. Your senses are heightened with the loss of sight, and you feel out each individual bump and ridge with your fingertips. 

You hear his head thump down on your pillow as you give your hand an experimental pump. 

“Don’t push it.” 

You _hmm_ at him amusedly before returning your attention down. It’s been a while since you’ve used your hands on someone like this, so you’re trying to get back in the groove of it. He doesn’t seem to mind– his hips shake with your every move and his hands move down to gently entwine with your hair. 

“Can I… try something?” You’re reluctant to ask, but the last thing you want is to spook him and ruin whatever it is you have burning between you. 

“Anything, _cyar’ika,”_ he says. You don’t know a word of Mando’a, but the sound of his voice goes straight to your throbbing heat. Gulping in anticipation, you let out a long breath and give him a few more pumps, using the twist of your hand to spread the pre-cum leaking from his tip. 

Slowly, so _slowly,_ you lower your head down to meet your hand, bringing your lips to the head of his cock. His hands tighten in your hair like a vice, pushing his hips up with a startling force. You immediately pull back with a distressed cry, just missing being stabbed in the face with a Mandalorian dick.

He immediately relaxes his grip once he realizes what happened. “ _Shit._ I’m sorry. Couldn’t help it.” You have to push down a giggle at the situation. 

“It’s _okay,_ just... relax,” you say, bringing your hands down and rubbing his stomach soothingly. Trying not to think about the toned muscles directly under you, ones that you would’ve never known he had, but aren’t surprised at all to find. 

Satisfied that he’s relaxed enough, you bring yourself back down to him, forgoing slowness and wrapping your lips all the way around the tip. His breathing is labored, but he’s sitting still this time. Thank the maker. 

You let him guide your head down slowly, both of you moving in equilibrium with the other, seeming to wordlessly know what feels good to him. To you. The taste and feel of him in your mouth is downright _erotic_ , and you can’t help but moan, the vibration of it causing him to push you down further.

“Fuck, you feel good.” 

You swell at the praise, using it as the extra incentive you need to take him further in your mouth. But when you bring your hand to circle the base of his cock, you realize that there’s _no way_ that whole thing can go in your mouth. 

It’s just not physically possible.

At least… not yet. Maybe with some determination. 

With your resolve steeled, you begin a steady rhythm of ups and downs _,_ letting him work his way in and out of your mouth. You move your hands in tandem at the base, allowing one to slip down to cup his balls. 

And oh, it’s just sinful. 

In the dark, with his hands in your hair, his dick inching its way down your throat. You let the softness of your tongue caress the underside of it, allowing him to take the lead and find what feels good for him. 

You’re absolutely soaked. You’ve never received much pleasure from this in the past, always thinking of it as more of a one-sided activity, but this is different. With him, _everything_ is different. 

One of your hands leaves him to silently slip into your own pants. Keeping your mouth on him, you quickly find your clit and that _sweet_ relief. It’s hot and everything is warm and you can’t help but suck on him _harder_ , letting him pick up the pace to start fucking your mouth. 

But you must be wetter than you thought you were because his movements suddenly stop at the sound, his cock still buried deep in your mouth. 

“Are… are you,” he starts. “Are you touching yourself right now?”

He’s still holding you down, so you just respond with an _uh-huh–_ or really, _ummhmm–_ and he lets out the most visceral noise you’ve ever heard. He immediately picks up the pace again. 

“ _Cyari’ka.”_ He says it again, and you make a mental note to ask him what it means. Later. “You’re _perfect.”_

It’s too much for you to bear, so you just take him impossibly deeper, letting him know that you feel exactly the same. Even if you suspect that he’s just saying it from the fog of arousal, you _mean_ it. 

Your jaw is starting to get tired, and you try to relax it just a little more, increasing the pressure on your clit. 

“Wh-Where do you want it? Sweet girl,” he mumbles, and you pull up and off with a wet _pop_ , letting your hands take over.

“Want what?” You mostly say it just to tease him. 

“Fuck. I’m going to come. _Where do you want it?”_ His tone is forceful and demanding in a way that you didn’t anticipate but fully welcome. 

“In my mouth,” you say instantly, and he starts to ask you if you’re sure, but you’re already wrapping your lips and tongue around him again, enveloping him in the wet heat. The pressure of him is something that you don’t want to soon forget, or even ever forget.

Within a few more twists of your hands, he’s groaning your name loud enough to where you’re certain people outside of the ship can hear it. He subconsciously pushes you down further, and you feel it as soon as it happens. The tip of his cock on the back of your throat, your lips clamped tight around his cock, sucking the whole _glorious_ thing.

He comes almost immediately, and you whimper as the wet strings fill your mouth and throat with the taste of him. He slowly rocks on your tongue, riding out his high. You pull your hands from your pants to stroke him through it, milking him to the last drop, making sure to swallow all of it. You memorize the sounds that he makes like they’re going to be the last thing you ever hear.

When you finally pull off, you take a second to catch your breath, tucking him back into his pants delicately.

“So… how was that?” You ask it awkwardly, wanting to kick yourself for it. 

You get no response. 

“Mando?”

Still nothing. 

You scoot up closer to his facing, finding his shoulder and giving it a light shake. 

“Mando?” The only sound you hear is his breathing, deep and even. 

He’s _asleep._

You laugh quietly in disbelief, but you can’t even be mad at him. It’s the fastest you’ve seen him fall asleep _ever,_ and he seems so peaceful. Your heart swells, knowing that you brought him this peace. 

You lay down next to him, letting your body grow heavy, and try to find the same peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do I smell a backstory???
> 
> so... the alternate chapter title was "a hando for mando" but I figured that would be too many spoilers. was this chapter too horny? maybe. I take no reponsibility. 
> 
> please feel free to comment whatever/whenever, and also to come over to my tumblr to be friends! i love nothing more than when people reach out and i swear i am very friendly and sometimes funny.
> 
> ****if you view my tumblr on desktop mode, you will be able to find my update schedule in the left sidebar!
> 
> sunsetkenobi.tumblr.com  
> \--  
> sources:  
> [Loth-bat](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Loth-bat)  
> [Jogan Fruit](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jogan_fruit#:~:text=Jogan%20fruit%20was%20a%20type,and%20could%20be%20eaten%20raw.)  
> [Correllian Fried Ice Cream](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corellian_fried_ice_cream)  
> [Amban Phase-Pulse Blaster](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Amban_phase-pulse_blaster)  
> [DX-2 Disruptor Pistol](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/DX-2_disruptor_pistol/Legends)  
> [DXR-6 Disruptor Rifle](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/DXR-6_disruptor_rifle)  
> [Mando'a](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mando%27a/Legends)


	3. all these people

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your trip to Corellia reveals more than a few things about the Mandalorian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again!
> 
> i'm sorry for the little bit of waiting you all had to do for this chapter! luckily, my semester ended earlier this week so I will be able to update much more frequently. this chapter was a full 37 pages of writing so... happy thanksgiving (if you celebrate!)
> 
> you may also notice that I changed the summary of this story a little bit to match a different direction that I want to take it, and also updated the chapter count from 4 to 7! I have no regrets. I also want to say mind the tags- this story is not going to shy away from spiciness.
> 
> ch. warnings: smut, swearing, angst-ish, blindfolds, more oral (trust me tho it's different this time), and I make things up about star wars again but cite my sources
> 
> strap in ;)

Your bed is _extremely_ warm and cozy, and you almost consider just going back to sleep as soon as you wake up.

The door to your little cubby is open, letting slivers of light filter in from the lower deck. Realizing you can see, you immediately slap your fingers up to cover your eyes. _Mando._ It would be detrimental at this point if you accidentally saw him. 

Carefully turning your head to the side, you peer out from between your fingers and reach out under the covers with one foot, but he isn’t there. You let out a giant sigh of relief and let your hand drop, rising from the mattress.

Rolling your neck around, you try to alleviate some of the stiffness of sleep from your bones. Your jaw… hurts. Oh. Yeah. That happened. Last night, that happened. You blush and shake the thoughts from your head, rising to your feet with a small smile. 

It’s kind of impossible to actually believe that you didn’t just make that up in your head, that it wasn’t a dream. You’ve definitely had dreams like that before, but… This was real. The way that you have to massage the muscles in your face proves that enough.

You hear some banging around from above you, but stop to brush your teeth and throw on some socks to relieve the bite of the cold ship floor from your feet before climbing up the ladder. Making your way to the cockpit, you’re greeted with quite the sight. 

The Mandalorian is on his back with his helmet and arms stuck through a control panel, likely fixing something or other. The child, however, is sitting on Mando’s chest, banging together random tools. It’s almost hilarious, the contrast of seriousness versus childlike curiosity. You softly walk over and hoist the kid up to your hip, returning the sharper of the tools that he is holding safely to Mando’s kit. 

As if sensing the pressure being lifted from his chest, Mando inches his way out of the panel and stares up at you. You return the stare, feeling like you’re being pinned down on the spot before he finally breaks the silence. 

“Good morning.” You crack a smile. 

“Morning.” You make starfighter-esque noises as you pretend to fly the kid through the air before you land in the co-pilot’s seat across from where Mando is sitting on the floor. 

“So,” he starts. 

“Soooooo,” you say, pulling your legs up into the seat with you. 

“How– How are you?” He asks, sorting through the tools. He’s trying very clearly to be nonchalant, but there’s almost tangible energy in the air. You’re both hyper-aware of each other, circling around to see who’s going to break and mention it first.

“I’m good, thanks,” you tease. 

“Good,” he says shortly. “I feel like we should talk.”

“About what?” You ask coyly. You’re feeling flirty this morning– maybe not _just got laid_ flirty, but close enough– and you feel comfortable enough now to be able to mess with him a little. 

He levels a look at you, his metallic visor somehow conveying everything you can’t see on his face.

“Yeah, no. You’re right.” You’re curled in on yourself, holding the kid. His kid. And the hilarity of the situation really hits you. 

You’re sitting cross-legged in the co-pilot seat of a Mandalorian’s ship, wearing nothing but your pajamas and comfy socks, holding a wrinkly green fifty-year-old baby. And last night, you sucked said Mandalorian’s dick until he came in your mouth. And then fell asleep. Like, dead to the world asleep. 

It’s fucking funny. So you can’t stop yourself before you start wheeze-laughing, which just has to be the most attractive thing he’s ever seen in the whole galaxy. 

(It absolutely is.)

But the stare from his helmet is heavy and you can feel it on you as he asks, “What’s so damn hilarious?” He almost sounds defensive, which only makes you laugh _harder._ It lasts a few more moments while you cackle breathlessly, slapping at your thighs while he turns to pack up his tools. Once you’re finally able to hold a straight face again, you mime wiping a tear from your eye– just to push his buttons a little further.

Which ends up being a bad choice. Or a very, very good one, because he surges up off of the ground to brace his arms on the top of the seat, effectively caging you in. Your mouth drops to an ‘o’ shape, his head dipping to meet your eyes. 

“What,” he says, “Is so _damn_ funny?” 

“Just… this.” You wave an arm around through the air, gesturing at the ship vaguely. “Whatever this is. With you.” 

“You think this is funny.” 

Yes. 

“No, of course that’s not wh–”

“I should put my cock back in your mouth so you’ll stop laughing.” 

Oh. Oh… _Oh._ Whatever you were going to say, it died with his words. So much for not breaching the subject. You manage a gulp, one that he surely heard as it breaks the deafening silence of the room. As you open your mouth to answer– to raise your chin at him and say _okay_ , just as a challenge, a bet– the baby wails in your lap. 

“Oh no,” you say, breathlessly. “You’ve ruined him! He’s too young to hear that kind of language, awwww.”

“He doesn’t understand Basic,” Mando rasps quietly. His sheer presence over you is conflicting tremendously with the tender weight of the baby in your lap, and you’re unsure of where to direct your attention, or even how to deal with the Mandalorian’s sudden burst of bluntness.

“I gotta pee,” you blurt, standing abruptly. He staggers back a step, having been leaning over you, and accepts the baby that you shove into his arms. You practically _sprint_ from the cockpit, not missing the way Mando chuckles behind you. 

Mando leaves not long after to go hunting down his bounty, this time prepared with a speeder that hasn't been wrecked. He comes back around nightfall when you’re already asleep. 

* * *

When you wake up, you find him already in the cockpit again with the baby asleep in his carrier. He’s sitting at the pilot’s seat punching in coordinates for your next destination, preparing the ship for takeoff. Since Mando’s been back and realized how damn hot it is on this planet, he’s been running the air conditioning nonstop... which is better than sitting in the sweltering heat, but the 'Crest has two settings for air conditioning: off, or _a fucking indoor blizzard._ It’s probably not as bad as you’re making it out to be, but you still settle into the seat behind his wrapped securely in a soft green blanket with your feet tucked under you. 

“So where are we headed, boss?” It comes out almost unexpectedly, a teasing nickname you gave him months ago. It doesn’t quite fit anymore, because even though you still technically work for him, whatever you have with him has gone far past what is acceptable in a workplace relationship. Eager to deflect those thoughts, you start again. “Wait, no. Let me guess. Hmm. Chandrila? No, that’s too pretty for us. How about Iego? I hope it’s Iego. I want to see an Angel.” 

“Corellia.” He starts flipping switches, pushing the throttle forward, and guiding the ship to ascend. 

“Corellia? There’s… a lot of people on Corellia.” You didn’t think he would want to risk being seen by that many people, not when he was still technically on the run from the Imperial Remnants. Not when Corellia was very recently dominated by an Imperial presence.

“Yes.” 

“So, _why_ did you accept a job on Corellia?” You snuggle further into your seat as the Crest breaks the atmosphere of the planet, heading into empty space. 

“I didn’t. Whoever it is was originally on Tatooine.” Well, that makes more sense. There’s not much on Tatooine. “But people tend to move around when there are bounties on them. Especially high bounties.” His voice is low and teasing, and you sense that he’s smirking slightly under his helmet. 

“How high?” You ask, nodding your chin up at him as he moves to activate the hyperdrive. 

“Fifty thousand credits.” You would’ve done a spit take if you’d been drinking something, and you just gape at him like a fish. He doesn’t seem to want to elaborate, though. 

“Sounds like this quarry might be a little bit dangerous,” you say. The stars in the viewport melt together into shining white lines as the ship pushes into hyperspace.

“It could be,” he admits as he activates the auto-pilot. 

“Were you planning on telling me?” You don’t know if you’re overstepping your bounds, but you don’t think you are. On one hand, you’re still technically an employee of his, and if something happens to him, it would be a very poor outlook for you _and_ the child. It also means that you have to follow his orders– at least to a certain extent. On the other hand, you don’t know how attached to him you’re allowed to be before things start to get claustrophobic for him. He spins the pilot’s seat to face you and rests his gloved hands on his knees. 

“I was. I’m sorry. We haven’t had the chance to talk much.” And… he isn’t wrong. You’ve basically slept through his entire presence on the ship since you _agreed_ to talk to him about things, and. Yeah. Okay. You panicked prematurely. 

“Do you think it’s anything you can’t handle?” You pick at a thread on the inside of your blanket, your head being the only thing poking out. He seems to notice this and hits a few buttons on his vambrace that graciously stop the influx of freezing air– safe now that you’re not in swamp hell anymore. 

“Are you worried about me, sweetheart?” And wow. He’s really been pushing it with the pet names. Heat immediately rises to your face at the use of _sweetheart_ and you think it’s probably the intended response. 

“Of course not. You can take care of yourself. I just thought, if you needed backup…” Your words trail off as you look down at his boots. He lets out a heavy sigh. 

“I’d rather you stay hidden for this.” 

“Are _you_ worried about _me?”_ You ask it half genuinely and half goofily. “Because, I’ll have you know, I can take care of myself too.” 

“I know you can. But I don’t want to risk the kid.” Which makes sense, but still grates at your nerves. You haven’t really been _off_ the ship for longer than a few minutes in… weeks, probably. 

“Which part of Corellia are you going to?” 

“Coronet City.” You groan loudly, dropping your head back. 

“That’s the _interesting_ part.” Corellia is a picturesque, beautiful world with sandy beaches and rolling hills, but also has bustling cities. Coronet City is probably one of the more… energetic ones. You’ve only ever heard about it from your old contacts– It’s exactly what you need right now. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“No you aren’t, you–” Gravel-maggot. But you stop yourself before you can insult a Mandalorian to his face, (hopefully) meeting his gaze through his visor. “It’s okay. I’ll _live_. But you have to promise to bring me back something interesting.” 

“I promise.” He sounds so sincere that you have to take a cycle of breath before you can talk again. A beat passes between you, and your mind turns to the bantha in the room. 

“Um,” You start tentatively, a mirror image of his words from just the other day.

“Hm?” He tilts his helmet at you, sitting up a bit straighter and crossing his arms across his chest. 

“The kid’s asleep. We should probably– um. Talk?”

Every time you talk to Mando about something _not_ pertaining to the two of you, it’s like you’re the most confident person in the galaxy. For the most part, you can seriously hold your own against whatever banter he throws at you. But for whatever reason, the second the conversation shifts to a topic relating to him or yourself, you just… clam up. Awkwardness fills your veins and muddies your mind until you can barely form coherent sentences when you talk to him. 

“Okay.” 

And, fuck. You wait for a second for him to start talking. But he doesn’t. So you have to bite the bullet, gulping heavily. 

“Look, I-” You begin at the same time he says, “You don’t–” 

“You first,” he suggests. 

“I don’t want you to think that… the other night, that it has to mean anything.” He sits further back in his seat at your declaration. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated to me. We can just forget about it if you want to.” You pick at the skin on your lips subconsciously, an old habit that surfaces whenever you’re anxious.

Mando brings a hand up to rub against his face– or his helmet, really– which almost makes you burst out laughing, if not for the sharp twinge in your stomach at what you’re saying. You aren’t lying, you’re just not telling your own side of the story. How desperately you want it to mean something to him.

“What happens if I don’t want to forget about it?” You stop moving altogether. The galaxy stops moving, and it’s like you’re watching a HoloNet movie of yourself and the camera just panned out to show every person in existence, except it’s just the two of you, alone together right now. 

You had mentally steeled yourself for this talk. From past experiences, you knew it’s best to always have a game plan for being shot down, and being around him… You’ve never felt more like you’re stumbling through the dark trying to figure out what to do about your feelings for him. To get ahead of that, you'd just decided to lead with something to let him know it was okay to say no to all of this.

It was a tough decision and one that came after a _lot_ of grueling contemplation. You had laid awake last night, cuddling the kid and staring out of the viewport. It sucked. Being alone on the ship with the kid, knowing that you were going to have to eventually face him and either admit your feelings or pretend that they didn’t exist altogether. Plus, he comes from a culture that’s completely foreign to you. You can’t pretend to understand every aspect of it, and don’t even know if these types of relationships are _allowed_.

So it’s safe to say that was definitely not the response that you were expecting. At all. In a million years. 

Which kind of makes you feel like an idiot because hello, you’re talking about the man you just used your mouth on and he called you _pretty girl_ and _cyar’ika–_ whatever that means, you still don’t know. But hearing the words out loud, even after he’s been almost shamelessly flirting with you, gives you a ridiculous amount of validation. A light shines through your chest at it, moving to glow through your eyes. 

“I would be okay with that,” you murmur. “But, we still have to figure out where we’re going to go from here.” 

“Can we just figure it out slowly? One day at a time. I’m– I’m new to this.”

“That’s okay. I’m okay with that. But…” You trail off.

“But, what?” He prods. 

You absolutely cannot finish that sentence. You hadn’t even meant to add the ‘but’. It was supposed to be personal, something private for your eyes only. In your head. Not out loud. He repeats his question again, though, and you figure that it actually could be a logical thing to ask.

“Can we, um. Can we still do stuff?” He inclines his head at you in question, and you blush furiously. “Like, you know. _Stuff._ ” 

He seems to understand this time, stiffening slightly. “I’m a bit out of practice. But the other night, I–” 

“I can do it again for you if you’d like,” you whisper, quiet enough that you can barely hear it but you know the sensors in his helmet must pick it up.

“Fuck. Okay. I’d like that. Okay. We can do _stuff_. Is that what you want?”

“So much,” you say, almost before he’s done speaking. “But… I want you to myself. No one else.” Is that weird? Are you being weird? What’s going on?

He makes a waving motion around the room with his arms, surveying his surroundings as if to say _Do you see anyone else around here?_

“I meant on Corellia, dickbag,” you deadpan. He genuinely laughs at that, the absurdity of it. 

“Do you think I just go around picking up women?” Mando holds his gloved hands over his stomach to try and push down his laughter. 

“No, I-I don’t know what you do! Stop it, you’re always laughing at me,” you giggle. 

“You’re the one who’s always laughing at _me_ ,” he says, settling down. It’s a pleasant moment, a smile plastered to your face that almost hurts because it’s so big. But of course, the 'Crest always has it out for you, and an alarm goes off, signaling some sort of malfunction.

You sigh, standing and leaving your blanket in the seat behind you, telling him you’ll _go find whatever it is and punch it until it works_ , and _he needs to figure out if it’s a problem with the stupid engines_. You feel his eyes locked on your pajama-clad ass as you make your way out of the cockpit, a small smirk finding its way to your lips.

The red alarm lights are flashing through the hull, much to your annoyance. What’s even worse is the alert noise, designed to wake up the pilot if something goes wrong when they’re asleep. You don’t even think the dead could sleep through this damn alarm, as it rattles your brain in your skull. You go into fix-it mode when your sock feet hit the durasteel floor of the ship. 

Okay, find the boo-boo. Where is the 'Crest hurting today? 

It seems like every time you turn around, another thing is wrong with her. But you find it in yourself to forgive her because she’s old and therefore has character. She’s one of your best friends. Even if she _does_ hate you. She’s your baby, after all the time you’ve spent with her and all the repairs you’ve made to her. You think you might even love her more than the Mandalorian does. 

Because you are a connoisseur of antiques, of course.

You aren’t blessed with having a fancy vambrace like Mando, so you settle for grabbing a tool to unhinge one of the electronics panels. This would be so much easier if droids were allowed on your ship, but Mando’s too wary of them, which drives you mad because you have to actually do work _yourself._

You eventually get the cover pried off and drop it over by a stack of cargo crates. The internal hardware stares you down with an intimidating force, wires crossed over one another in incomprehensible tangles. 

Fuck. You know what you’ll be doing while Mando’s on Corellia. 

You don’t even feel like grabbing goggles or anything protective, instead just shoving your face into the panel to start unplugging things. Not anything important, nothing that would cause you to drop out of hyperspace– or be torn in half– just random lights.

The Crest is notorious. A few weeks ago the alarm blared for two hours before you figured out that you just had to turn the refresher light on and off again. 

The alarm suddenly stops screeching, with a final flash of red. You turn away from the panel, grumbling to yourself about how _of course he fixed it_ and how you _hate this stupid ship anyway,_ and move to reattach the durasteel cover, patting the wall to make sure the 'Crest knows you don’t really mean your rude words. But when you turn to your side to grab it, two strong arms bracket you against the wall. 

You can feel the heat of your breath coming back against you, a testament to how confined you currently are. He takes half a step closer to you, and you register the cool surface of beskar against your back simultaneously with the press of his cock against your ass, straining against his pants.

“Oh, hey. Did you… find the problem?” You ask him, choking down a squeal. He brings his head down near yours, then to the side. The sound of metal against metal resounds as his helmet makes contact with the wall just over your shoulder. 

“Yes,” he rasps. “I found the _problem_.” 

And somehow, you don’t think he means the problem with the 'Crest.

“I want to return your favor.” 

“What favor?” You immediately ask. “I didn’t even fix the ship.” 

He pulls his helmet back, turning you around by your shoulders. His gaze alone pushes you back into the wall.

“You know the one,” he says, not breaking his stance. His hands are still pressed into the wall on either side of your head, and your entire line of sight is just… Mandalorian. Mando. Him. “Can I? I was gone after. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. Let me make it up to you.” 

And yeah, you were probably a little miffed after you woke up when you had some time to reflect on how you gave him a very chivalrous cock sucking and he just… fell asleep, leaving you high and dry, and then wasn’t there when you woke up. But you were honestly just grateful for the experience, to know what it felt like to have him inside your body, any part of your body. It didn’t matter where. 

“Do you h-have something in mind?” You ask, voice shaking. His sheer body size is not lost on you, and the thought of the difference between the two of you travels straight to the pool below your stomach. His visor finally breaks from your face, leaning down to train on what you’re pretty sure is your breasts. One of his hands leaves the wall to play with the collar of your pajamas.

“Are you attached to this shirt?” 

“Not physically, no, but I like it– Woah, hey _what_ ,” you say as his hands work their way under your shirt to pull it off. “What are you doing?” He looks back up at you. You aren’t protesting, not even close. You’re just very confused.

“Do you trust me?” 

_With my life._

You nod in affirmation, and his hands resume their work, pulling off your shirt completely. You suddenly feel extremely naked, not even considering that you had come up to see him after just waking up. And you consider yourself to be a self-respecting woman, so you don’t wear a bra to sleep. So. Your breasts are now completely exposed to him. 

To make it more nerve-racking, this is the first time either of you has seen the other exposed. Everything else had been in the pitch black, but now, underneath the lights of the hull… You have half a mind to reach your arms up and cover yourself, suddenly self-conscious of what he’s going to think about you. 

He doesn’t seem to mind, though. His gloved hands are still gripping your shirt, probably hard enough to rip it. Which he does. 

“Hey, what the fuck?” Your insecurities suddenly vanish out of your mind as you watch him rip a thin strip of fabric from the bottom of your shirt, creating a long rectangle. You’re laughing though, just at the absurdity of him and his sudden mood change.

“I’ll get you another one on Corellia,” he reassures you, and his sharp intake of breath at the sight of your nipples hardening against the cold ship air is the last thing you see as he raises the strip of fabric to your eyes, tying it around the back of your head. 

Okay, if you thought whatever had happened before this was hot, you were wrong. _This_ is hot. It’s like he’s intensified the effect of the helmet. When he’s just wearing the helmet, you know (more or less) when he is and isn’t looking at you. And you can look back, hold his stare. Now, with this blindfold on, you have no damn idea what he’s up to. Your hands begin to shake from it. You had no idea he could be… like this. 

It’s thrilling. 

“Are you going to tell me if it becomes too much for you?” He asks, smoothing your hair down. 

“Are you going to fuck me?” You blurt, lost in your thoughts. You immediately slap a hand up to your mouth, blushing at your boldness. You begin to stutter out an apology, but you feel his ungloved hand gently tugging your fingers away from your face. When did he take those off?

“Not yet, cyar’ika,” he chuckles, and you hear the hiss of release as he pulls his helmet off, placing it somewhere to the side. 

“What… What does that mean? You keep saying it,” you breathe out, as he brings his mouth to your neck. Oh, it’s delicious. His lips are soft and warm, contrasting against the rough sensation of his facial hair. He doesn’t answer you at first, and you think he’s just going to ignore you as his hands cup both sides of your face, pulling you in for a deep kiss. His tongue slips into your mouth and you forget your question entirely, raising your hands to grab onto his forearms.

“I’ll tell you later.” You want to groan, but it comes out as more of a moan when he drops one of his hands and finds the curve of your waist, the other rubbing slow circles on your lower back.

“Mmmokay. If you say so,” you reply. His hands stroke over you for a few seconds longer, before he slowly steers you by the shoulders to a different part of the ship. You can’t tell if you’ve moved ten inches or ten feet, but the backs of your thighs hit something hard, and he helps you boost yourself to sit on what you think is a cargo crate. 

You hear the telltale sound of metal dinging again as his hands slide down your chest. They stop only for a moment, just to brush against your nipples, but then he keeps going. He has other plans. 

“Lean back.” 

You do as you’re told, finding that you can rest firmly against the wall of the ship for support. Your feet still dangle off of the floor though, dusting against the sides of his body. Mando’s hands stop once again at your hips, and you jump at the sudden heat as his mouth finds the underside of your breast. It’s mesmerizing. A few nights ago… You thought that kissing him was the best sensation you’d ever felt. You were so, so wrong. 

Gently, in stark contrast with his nature, he peppers kisses down your abdomen, stopping above the waistline of your pajama pants. You wait quite impatiently, thinking you know his next move but you aren’t quite sure. 

When his fingers hook under your pants, you thank the fucking stars you chose today not to wear any underwear.

Which had everything to do with comfort and definitely nothing to do with spending almost every waking moment since you got a taste of his dick thinking about taking it again. Definitely not the other thing. 

Mando slides your pants off, discarding them to the floor. There’s a moment where everything is silent, only the simultaneous roar and vacuum of hyperspace punctuate the peace. You feel nothing but his breath against your stomach as it expands and contracts with every breath, your fingers reaching to grab the sides of the crate. 

He gently says your name. “Can I-”

“Please do,” you interrupt him, already agreeing to whatever it is. You know you probably sound desperate, and yeah, you are. Is that _so_ wrong? Is it?

He chuckles lightly, hooking his arms under your legs and settling them over his shoulders. The chilly kiss of beskar against the backs of your knees is a welcome feeling in contrast with the sheen that’s forming over your skin with every second he waits. 

The first feeling of his lips against your pussy almost makes you pass out.

You swear, your vision goes completely black for a second and blood rushes to your head. You can hear it roaring in your ears, followed by a sharp intake of breath and an embarrassingly loud whine. 

His mouth stills, just barely pressing against your outer lips. 

“Is this where you want me?” He asks, breath hot and fanning out against the apex of your thighs. You barely manage to shake your head _yes_ when he starts again, using his grip on your knees to pry open your legs. 

Somehow, he’s managed to unlock a fantasy you’d kept dearly secret and then improve upon it. Sitting here, on the lower deck of the ship, you’re completely exposed to him. He spreads your legs as far as is comfortable for you, leaving your throbbing cunt open and glistening. You can feel how wet you are, and you’re sure he sees it too as he dips a finger into your slit.

You haven’t been touched in _so_ long, and you haven’t touched _yourself_ in so long, that your hips jump at every little contact he makes with you, reaching up to meet his hand. The blindfold multiplies everything tenfold, being completely bare and unable to see. He trails the one finger up and down your slit a few more times, only using feather-light touches. 

“I didn’t think you would be so wet for me,” he states simply. 

“For you. Always,” you mutter slowly.

You feel a slight push against your entrance, a brief pressure as he circles his finger around before sliding it in. Slowly, slowly, he works his finger in, letting you adjust to the feeling of having something inside you. 

“Used to imagine this,” you slur, between heaving breaths. 

“Imagine what?” He asks, turning to lay a kiss against your inner thigh. 

“ _This,_ ” you moan. “What it would be like to, fuck, to have your fingers inside me.” 

“Do you want more, cyar’ika?”

“I want– I want everything. Maker, I will take anything you give me,” you say. You can feel your eyes beginning to water at the sweet sensation of just one of his fingers working its way in and out of you. 

“I used to imagine it, too.” He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t acknowledge the damage he’s just done to you with only six words. He must know it, though, from the way you quiver around him in response. He just kisses your thigh again, spreading your legs just a little bit further. Much to your protest, he pulls his finger from your weeping cunt, spreading the wetness up and across to your clit before he seals his mouth over it. 

You almost kick him in the head, crying out into the hull of the ship. 

“ _Fuck,_ what the fuck. What the fuck?” He hums in mock sympathy, suckling your clit and running his fingers over the rest of the outside of you, one hand coming to brace your hips down against the crate. 

You never even imagined having his mouth on you like this. Not with the helmet. It wasn’t even something that had crossed your mind in your dreams or in your shower escapades, where you had only ever tried to pretend that your fingers were his own. Or, on many occasions, his dick. Which is all you can think about right now, a desperate need to have your pussy filled by anything. 

And if he’s not going to fuck you yet, well. Then you’ll gladly take whatever it is that he _will_ give you. And return the favor back again later just as he’s doing. 

“Please,” you whimper. 

“Please, what? Use your words,” he says, against your inner lips. 

“Something. In me. Please. Anything, please. Please put your fingers on me, oh Maker–” You can’t even talk in sentence fragments, but your train of thought is violently derailed when he complies, plunging two thick fingers deep into your aching cunt. 

Yesyesyes _yesyesyes_ is all you can think. He returns his attention to your clit, all the while pumping his fingers in and out of you. His hands are longer, bigger, _thicker_ than yours and it feels absolutely divine. You’d forgotten what a real stretch feels like, what it feels like to really be filled with something. 

When you start writhing around, he doesn’t hesitate to increase the intensity. You feel his tongue snaking out to rub circles against your little nub, his fingers making a come-hither motion that drives you fucking crazy. On one uptick, he finds that spot inside you that drives you absolutely wild, and your hands shoot out to lace in his hair, yanking him against your cunt. 

“M’sorry,” you choke between moans upon hearing the _oomph_ sound he makes. But he doesn’t even respond, instead letting you listen to your own cries of pleasure and the sinful sounds that your soaking pussy is making, echoing off of the metal walls of the ship as he piston his fingers deeper still. 

You feel your lower body clench, clamping down around his digits as you get closer and closer to release. As if to play with you, he releases his hold just as you’re nearing the top of the wave. 

“I want you to come on my mouth. Can you do that?” But he doesn’t wait for an answer, just switches the position so that his fingers are rubbing cruel and torturous circles around your clit, his lips and tongue hot and moving to penetrate you. 

It’s glorious. People hunt down this feeling all over the galaxy, hopping from planet to planet to feel this enlightened. To find something that makes their life make sense, make it _worth_ living. You understand why they do it now, why people will throw their lives down for their lovers. This feeling, the way he’s touching you… You don’t think you’ll ever have this sort of lucidity ever again.

You come immediately, and so hard that you think you briefly forget your name. 

“Fuck, Mando, I, fuck,” you wail eloquently, clenching down tightly. He doesn’t stop as you finish, just returns his fingers to nestle back in, letting you have something to clamp down around. Your orgasm is so wet and intense that you just know it’s getting all over his face, but you can’t seem to care.

With labored breath, you let go of his hair to pull yours away from your face and lean back against the wall slightly. He doesn’t remove his hands from you, just presses gentle kisses from your hips up to your chest. When he takes one of your breasts in his mouth again, sucking hotly to leave a mark on your skin, you can’t take it anymore. 

“Mando?”

“Hmm,” he grunts, turning his attention to your other breast. He pulls his hand away to pay some much-needed attention to your oversensitive clit before sliding right back into you, stroking your still-fluttering walls.

“I need you.”

“I’m right here, cyar’ika,” he says, surprising you with a deep kiss. And, okay, the feeling of him still working your pussy open with his fingers while pushing the taste of your own orgasm into your mouth is hot– possibly one of the hottest things you’ve ever experienced in your whole life– but you want something else, and you intend to get it. 

“I need you inside me,” you clarify, breaking the kiss. 

“I _am_ inside you, pretty girl.” You want to punch him. And you would, if every part of your body wasn’t as weak as a noodle right now. 

“I want your cock inside me,” you groan. “Right now. I want you to take your cock and fill me with it.” You keep your tone blunt so that there could not possibly be a misunderstanding, but he just laughs and kisses you again. “I’m serious, Mando.” 

“You’re eager,” he comments. But he’s not budging, not removing his fingers. Nothing. 

“I will beg you. Is that what you want? I will literally beg you. Please, Mando, I-” And you were too busy talking out of your ass to notice the subtle unzipping of pants, the shuffling of clothes. You only notice when you involuntarily whine as his fingers leave you, only to be replaced with something very hard. And long. 

“That shut you up,” he observes. But he sounds strained, like how he sounds when he’s seriously injured or tired from a hunt. It’s true, though, you’re in a state of stunned silence as he holds his cock in one hand, using it to rub up and down through your folds, dragging deliciously against your little bundle of nerves. 

Now you know you’re crying. 

“You sure about this?” He asks, sounding incredibly strained, holding back from where he wants to be but making sure that you want him there. The hand not on his cock is holding onto one of your legs, keeping you nice and spread open for him. 

“Stars, yes. Please, Mando,” you answer, urging him to get on with it. If he stays like this much longer, you’ll probably come a second time. But you’ve already reserved the next orgasm for when he’s _really_ inside you. “Are _you_ sure?” You ask. 

He moans in response, lining up the head of his cock with your entrance. You can feel the wetness of it, the remnants of your orgasm coating you and preparing you to take him. He pushes just the head up against you, leaning down to catch your lips in a kiss again. 

“Just remember you started this,” he warns you. You don’t know what he means for a second until you feel the sting of the very tip of him enter you. And, fuck. He felt big in your mouth, but he feels even bigger now, and for a second you don’t know how this is going to anatomically work.

But you don’t have to worry about that, as the ship is thrown violently out of hyperspace. 

Your head comes back to meet the metal wall with a resounding _thump_. Okay, ow. But more importantly, Mando is flung away from you and across the hull. 

You sit in silence for a moment before breathing out, “What the hell just happened.” 

“Baby in the cockpit,” he says, accompanying the sounds of a zipper and the locks of his helmet back in place, followed by the ringing of ladder rungs as he quickly climbs them.

You can never get any damn peace.

Well, at least things are never boring.

* * *

You’re bored out of your mind.

It has been… fucking, you don’t even know. It’s been at least four days since Mando left. Maybe longer. He’s checked in every day on the comm, letting you know he’s still alive as he makes his way into the seedy underbelly of Coronet City. Apparently whoever he’s after is very, very hard to catch. 

You lay on the floor of the lower level, your legs propped above you against the wall. You’re running out of weird places to sit on the ship, having been cooped up for much longer than just four days. Turning your head to the side, you eye the hatch with a sly side-eye. You’re getting cabin fever. Starfighter fever. Ship fever? Whatever. You’ve run out of wires to detangle, metal surfaces to wipe, and pitchy songs to belt out for the kid. You are going crazy.

It would be so easy. To just… open the door. Take one foot, step it outside, then the other. To see Corellia through something other than transparisteel. To feel an actual atmosphere on your face, instead of the filtered air of the Crest. You’ve always wanted to see the city, never getting the chance or the means to take yourself here before. When he landed the ship, you weren’t in the cockpit, and now the ship is facing out towards the sea, so you can’t see anything. It’s tempting. It’s so tempting.

Except that you promised Mando you wouldn’t go anywhere. Before he left, you had made a deal. You would stay here and make sure nothing happened to the kid, and in return... You sigh, looking back up at the ceiling. 

But… Just how dangerous could Coronet City really be? You’re not completely helpless, not by a longshot. You have a… background that required extensive weapons and self-defense training, so you’d probably be able to handle almost anything that rushed you. Almost. It’s the baby that you’re worried about. 

He’s sitting on a blanket you laid out for him, making it more comfortable for him to lay on the floor of the ship with you as you attempt to melt through the durasteel bottom. In his hands, he holds a stuffed mynock, something Mando begrudgingly brought back for him after you made a whole argument about how the baby needs real toys, not just random parts detached from the ship. Luckily, he liked it. And now it goes everywhere with him. He can barely even sleep without it, a fact that you never fail to flaunt over the Mandalorian. It’s quite cute actually since the mynock is about the same size as he is.

“You would be good for me, right?” You ask the baby. He doesn’t seem to understand you and, if he does, he just ignores you, continuing to play with his toy. You mull it over for a few more seconds before thinking _oh, what the hell_. 

Rolling up onto your feet, you take a moment to assess yourself. You haven’t stopped in a while to be able to clean your clothes, and you’re currently clad in just pajamas. You have no good shirts. It would be highly unwise to wear these into a giant city like this, a fact which you’re acutely aware of. So that leaves one option. 

You’re going to have to raid Mando’s things. 

It occurs to you that you’re not completely sure where he even keeps his things, but after some pilfering around various storage compartments in the ship, you eventually strike gold on the upper level. His clothes are all a mix of brown and more brown with some suspicious blacks and greys, so you pull out something that looks vaguely like a shirt– in a plain black color. You throw it on over your remaining black pants, having to tie up the bottom of it. 

As a finishing touch, you brandish your black cloak, slipping into a comfy pair of boots for some walking and turning pensively to the kid. This is a very… unique problem. But you’ve seen all sorts of alien mothers carrying around their weirdly shaped children, so you can surely do it, too. 

You just hope he’s feeling compliant today. 

With just a little bit more ransacking, you find a medium-sized bag stashed near all the weapons that you can sling across your body and pass as sort of a purse. If a purse was ridiculously practical and, yeah, a little bit ugly. But it’ll have to do. You hoist the kid up off the ground as he squeals up at you and refuses to drop the stuffed mynock. Judiciously, you sigh and settle him into the bag, letting him stay clutched onto the little toy. He sinks down into it, knowing instinctively that he’s supposed to stay at least mostly out of sight. You flick your cloak over him anyway. 

Your whole body is shaking. Are you really about to do this? Disobey direct orders from the Mandalorian? You guess they weren’t _that_ direct, but. No, they were. He had looked at you firmly. Used your name. You swore that you would stay and protect the baby, just like always. But the need to get out and see the galaxy you’re exploring has overtaken the need to be a good crewmate, so. You’re really about to do this. 

At the last second, you shove a few credits into the bag with the kid, and pull out your disruptor pistol to tuck into the back of your pants. Just in case. 

You can’t put it in the bag because the kid will surely blow you both to ashes. 

You close your eyes, taking a deep breath in, then letting it out. Here goes nothing. The control panels make a faint _beep_ as you open the side door, not wanting to risk the hatch. But… wait. You have no way of controlling the ship from the outside. You halt the descent before the ramp even budges an inch. 

Think. _Think._ You’re already dressed, you’ve come too far to turn back. You have an old communicator in your things that can probably be programmed to the ship. 

It takes a few tries, but you eventually get it hooked up, thanking your lucky stars that you thought of it. You’re able to reroute the ship’s transmissions into the wristband so that if Mando comms in, it’ll still come to you. You shudder to think what would’ve happened if he had tried to contact the ship and you hadn’t been here. 

Okay, now that that’s taken care of. You take your place before the smaller ramp again, lowering it slowly. It hits the ground with a small metallic clang, and then you’re looking outside, into Coronet Spaceport. 

Your first thought is that Coronet City is a lot uglier than you thought it would be. 

It takes you about half an hour to figure out how to get into the city from the spaceport. Eventually, you figure out that there’s a shuttle system, dodging the guards and slipping onto it. It seems like the line of people trying to leave Corellia is never-ending, so they don’t pay that much attention to people crazy enough to get in. 

It’s not _as_ bad once you get past the outer slums, the rougher areas where the crime syndicates lurk. You shudder and pull your hood up over your face as you go by. No, the inside of the city is nice, you think to yourself, as you hop from tram to tram towards the downtown area. 

Large hulking skyscrapers reached into the atmosphere, reflecting the meager sunlight that made it through to the city. On this side of the city, the industrial haze has cleared and the evening sky is a warm orange glow. You wander for what are probably hours, just wanting to sight-see.

You’re playing a dangerous game, and you know it as you inch towards a large clearing in the urban towers. You don’t know where exactly the Mandalorian is or even when he’s planning on returning to the ship. When you’d talked to him yesterday, he had just said ‘soon.’ Whatever _that_ means– it could be anywhere between today and the next standard year. He could also very well be lurking around any corner, ready to reprimand you for leaving the ship. Or worse. 

You’d tried not to sound needy on his daily transmissions, but you could only control it so much. Before he left… it was like a religious experience. You don’t know how to describe it and don’t think that you could even if someone asked you to. You wanted him back. He had promised– _sworn_ – that when he got back, he would take care of you. And though you’re always telling him that you can take care of yourself, lately you seem to be thinking with something other than your brain when it comes to him. 

But it’s a massive city. The odds of him seeing you like this, with your cloak pulled up… they’re slim to none. You blend in with all of the other people or varying races who mull around the city streets, gravitating towards the blur of green on your vision. You shake the thoughts from your head, honing back in on your surroundings. The thrill, instead of the fear. And you notice that the clearing isn’t just a buildingless void. 

It’s a park. 

You hasten your step, immediately drawn towards it. You make sure not to run– you don’t want to attract too much attention while you have the kid with you– but you have an extra spring in your step. A large sign protruding around a golden gate reads ‘Axial Park,’ and you continue through the entrance. 

It’s… beautiful. It’s a safe space for nature in a massive industrial city. Clumps of trees line the plot of land, little dots of greeny leafage that you’d missed seeing during your time on the Crest. Families are strolling around, playing with their children or sitting and having picnics. Your feet carry you towards the center of the park, past a giant statue of a humanoid figure brandishing some sort of spear, resting at a pool of water with a tall fountain in the middle. 

You plop down onto the dirt surrounding the edge of the pond, just barely looking past the edge to see that it was designed to reflect images like a mirror. The sunset bounces off of it, sparkling across the surface of the fountain. You enjoy a brief moment of rest for yourself before something pokes at your side. 

Oh, shit. The kid’s still in the bag. 

He’s kind of poking you really hard and starting to blubber at you like his way of saying _take me out of here immediately or else._ Scanning the park, you decide it’s safe enough with a row of trees blocking the other side of the pond and the Corellian HoloNet screens providing ample noise cover. Just in case though, when you pull him out you situate him directly into your lap where he’s still partially obscured by the folds of your cloak. 

The kid makes a noise that sounds vaguely like _wah-doo_ and shakes the stuffed mynock in the air. His eyes are giant as they take in the scenery, the air fresh and naturally oxygenated, unlike on the Crest. It’s tranquil in the park, and you mentally pat yourself on the back for finding it in the mess of a city. You both needed it.

But– But. There is a but. You wish the Mandalorian was here with you. 

There’s no way to deny it. As you watch the kid grab for handfuls of grass, you realize that whatever you feel for Mando goes far past attraction, past the perils of his job, past the status of yours. He’s effectively the father of this kid you’re holding, shielding with your body. They’re a family. You just… don’t know how you fit in. Don’t know how he wants you to fit in. 

You want to fit in. You want him to say he’ll stop paying you, that you’re a permanent member of the crew, that you’re his and he’s yours. That you can take care of the kid together. You want something past a physical attraction– though the physical aspect of it is definitely _not_ lacking. At all.

But you know in the back of your mind that it can’t last. Eventually, you’re going to find out who the kid belongs to. Mando spoke of them once. The Jedi. The Force-sensitives who used to protect the galaxy– you snort thinking of what a _great_ job they did. The search for them so far has been fruitless and uneventful, to say the least. Most people don’t even believe they exist. But you know you’ll find them eventually and have to say goodbye. And then he won’t need someone to take care of the kid anymore, so you don’t know where that’ll leave you. 

You just want to enjoy this moment while it lasts. While you’re still fighting the kid, trying to keep him from eating grass because you think it’ll give him indigestion despite all of the other wacky stuff his diet consists of. A smile dances across your face as you think of what Mando would say about it, what sort of snide remark he would make. 

Before you know it, the sun is barely peeking above the horizon, gently fading into night. There aren’t many stars visible from Coronet City– maybe on other places on Corellia, but with all the light pollution, you’re lucky to make out only a few of them. You’ve got a little bit more comfortable, letting the kid venture out of his hidey-hole to splash his hands in the water of the pond. 

Until your commlink buzzes.

The blood drains out of your face, and you immediately feel all of your muscles go rigid and release at the same time. You stare blankly at your wrist, trying to process the situation. Shit. Shit. _Shit._ You have to pick it up. There’s not really another option. There’s only one person that would be comming you right now. With a shaking hand, you reach out to press the _receive_ button and hold your wrist up to your lips. 

“H-Hello? Hello,” you say. 

“Hey,” he says. He sounds like he’s out of breath, tired from spending days at work. “Just checking in. Wanted to let you know I’ll be back later tonight.” You don’t think your eyes could bulge much further outside of your head without falling completely out, and you reach to scoop up the kid and hide him away in his bag, feeling like Mando is literally watching you right now. 

“Tonight, hmm?” Fuck. “What- What time tonight? Do you think,” you ramble out, already scrambling to your feet. You’re trying not to be too conspicuous, as a darkly hooded figure in a park when it’s almost night, clutching tightly to a bag. It doesn’t help that if the Corellian Public Safety Service pulled you aside, you’d be caught carrying a ridiculously illegal disruptor pistol. 

“Probably an hour or two. I’m heading in now. Why?” he asks, still unsuspecting. “You two throw a party while I was gone and trash the ship?” 

Stars, you _wish._ That would be so much easier to explain. 

“No,” you say unconvincingly. You’re not a very good liar under pressure, never have been. Until an idea hits you. You smirk almost menacingly into the commlink and put on your most seductive voice. “I just wanted to be ready for you, _Man-do,”_ you purr, drawing out the syllables of his nickname. 

A moment of silence passes where you can hear modulated breathing, and you clench your muscles in anticipation of his response. 

“Fuck. Okay. I’ll be there in half an hour. But you better be fucking ready.” The comm disconnects with a high beep and you drop your wrist to your side. 

Well. That backfired. 

You peek at the kid, who’s staring up at you with wide eyes from his little bag, clutching the stuffed mynock to his chest. 

Ah, screw it. 

You break out into a near sprint out of the park, emerging into the city streets again. You need to get to the nearest tram, and you try to remember the location of the one you took before while you run. It’s a pain to maneuver through the city streets, with merchants and partiers trickling out into the early night, but you manage it without knocking anyone over. 

At last, the station comes into sight. You thank the maker when the giant HoloScreen announces that there’s going to be a tram coming through and going exactly where you need to be. Finally able to stop, you spend a few seconds hunched over and catching your breath. 

Still being downtown, the crowd isn’t quite so suspicious-looking yet–but you are– so you lower your hood to your shoulders. The station is only a few blocks away from Diadem Square, the center of activity in Coronet City. You’re not quite sure what day of the week it is, having lost track of time while in space, but you think it has to be the weekend based on all the types of people out and about right now. 

Then again, maybe the city’s just… like this. 

You bounce on your toes, checking the time. It’s been about seven minutes since Mando commed you. The tram shouldn’t take _that_ much longer, but you’re starting to get worried about whether you’re going to beat him back or not. Maybe if you don’t, you can just claim that you were taking a walk around the spaceport. 

You do feel guilty about lying though. You’re not good at it and you’ve never liked it. You’re starting to regret taking this little excursion, even feeling a little bit like you kidnapped the child. 

But it can’t be kidnapping if he likes you and he had a good time… and you even brought something to protect him with. So it’s fine, right? You move your cloak to the side subtly, peering in at the little green creature. 

“You like me, yeah? You’re not gonna rat me out?” You whisper at him. He just peers up at you with his gigantic eyes in response. 

The HoloScreen flashes and you can see the tram approaching the station in the distance. Finally. You move closer to the platform, ready to stop onto it the second it stops. 

Then, you hear your name being called from directly behind you. 

No, you don’t hear it. You _feel_ it. You feel the metallic rumble of his voice, the way it makes your ears start burning. You feel him looming behind you, and your legs freeze in place, stuck to the ground. The panic-prone part of your brain immediately launches into a whirlwind, contemplating if you could just fake a bad Coruscant accent and pretend to be someone else. 

The Mandalorian waits patiently for you to turn around. When you finally do, it’s reluctantly, with the smallest, most sheepish grin in history. It’s really more like you’re baring your teeth, trying to scare away a predator.

And there he is. A hulking mass of man and metal fused together, what you recognize as the dismantled parts of the phase-pulse blaster strapped to him, so it doesn’t attract too much attention. Even so, the crowd has parted slightly around him, nobody wanting to be standing directly next to a Mandalorian. 

Nobody but you, that is.

But he doesn’t even give you time to try to cover your ass or make an excuse. He just grabs your arm and starts leading you back through the crowd, away from the tram station. Together, you criss-cross your way through the droves of strangers populating the streets of downtown Coronet City, until finally, you duck onto a short avenue.

He sits you down at a small table at the corner of a small shop front. While the sky is completely dark by now, the subtle light washing out of the windows and the streetlights serve to illuminate your face to him. You situate the bag holding his kid onto your lap, making sure he’s sitting comfortably.

“Why did you leave the ship?” He asks it without any inflection in his voice, the words stated like he was talking about the weather. He’s leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, staring you down. 

Your shoulders sag under his gaze, and you practically deflate. 

“I’m sorry. I know I said I wouldn’t. I know you’re probably furious with me. I just… I wanted to see the city so badly. Also, I wanted to stretch my legs, and you know it gets kind of exhausting just looking at the same metal walls and fixing the same three things over and over, and I thought the kid could use some air,” you say all in one breath. 

“You have the kid with you,” he deadpans. 

“What do you think is in this bag?” You point down at the sack of green child balanced on your legs and hear a rough breath being exhaled. “Look, I’m sorry. I won’t– I won’t do it again.” You feel a sense of shame for it, for going against your word. 

He just sits like that, looking at you. Watching as your mouth softens into a frown and you move to start picking at the fabric of the bag. And then reaching out to grab your hand in his. 

“Hey, no. You don’t have to apologize to me. I mean,” he stops, contemplating. “It would’ve been nice to have a little heads up, though. I almost lost it when I saw you at the station.” 

You nod acceptingly, comforted at his words. Evidentially you’ve lost your edge, and you’re a lot less sneaky than you used to be. Being caught by him, it’s kind of thrilling. But also kind of scary. You don’t want to risk doing something to colossally piss him off this early on.

“I know, but. I promised you. I’m still sorry.” 

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck doing whatever I tell you. You’re your own person. It was a bad call. I’m sorry that you felt like you had to go behind my back. I know that you can take care of yourself,” he finishes. 

And you know that too, judging by the disruptor pistol preventing you from sitting properly in your chair. 

You take a second to turn his words over in your head. They show you how much he’s grown since you’d first met him, how he’s now able to make room in his life– in his Way– for other people. A wave of joy crashes over you at the thought, at how he’s opened up from the steely-eyed bounty hunter that the world knows him as. 

You feel the weight of his fingers on yours, the warmth present even through his gloves. 

“Well, relationships require getting to know one another’s needs, don’t they?” His head tilts almost imperceptibly. 

“Yes,” he says softly. “They do.” 

With that sentence, you think you could launch into space yourself. You’re in a relationship with him. _You’re_ in a relationship with _him._ You’re– he’s getting up. 

“I’ll be right back. Stay here,” he tells you. You know it’s a joke, his dry (and sassy) sense of humor showing through, so you let him pull his hand away from yours and turn your attention to the kid while he’s gone. 

You’re alone on the crowded street, surrounded by Corellians and other tourists who have no idea who you are. They look at you and see only your outward appearance. No one else alive knows of what you share with Mando, would probably never even be able to say they predicted it if they were told about it. No one knows what he does to you. What you do to him. All these people– they have no idea,

The Mandalorian comes back with a small paper bowl, setting it on the table in front of you. 

“Corellian fried ice cream?” You ask enthusiastically. You remember back to weeks ago when you had just started sharing sleeping space. In the dark of the night, neither of you felt vulnerable and each of you had opened up to the other. One of the tidbits of information he’d divulged about himself was that his favorite food in the whole galaxy is Corellian fried ice cream. 

“You have to try it while you’re here,” he explains. But…

“Two spoons?” You eye him tentatively, wondering what he’s up to. 

“For you to share with the kid.” You laugh brightly at his fatherly tone and pull the kid up to where he can reach, placing a spoon in his little hand. You direct him to the little bowl, letting him stab at the fried treat before you try it yourself. 

Corellian fried ice cream is, well. Fried ice cream. In its barest parts, it was just deep-fried carbosyrup and cream with a little bit of chocolate drizzled over top. He waits as you raise your own spoon to your mouth, tasting the sappy-sweet flavor. 

“It’s good,” you say, mouth full and muffled. You immediately go back for a second bite, knocking the kid’s spoon out of the way. He’s got ice cream all over his mouth, but you don’t bother cleaning the mess because he’s just going to make it again. “How did you find out about this?"

The baritone quality of his voice blends through with the cityscape, and you’re just a drop in a massive sea of people wandering Coronet City tonight. But he makes you feel seen. 

“Early on in the work. I was young and hadn’t eaten in days. It was there, it was cheap, and so I got some and ducked behind a building.” The image of a young Mando sneaking behind someone’s home or business amuses you, the idea of him just barely lifting his helmet to sneak in a few bites of junk food. 

You eat a few more bites somberly, just taking it all in. You were on a planet you’d never been to before in a city a hundred times as large as you could've possibly imagined it to be, sitting on a crowded street with a Mandalorian and an alien baby sitting on your lap. You’d only been with him for about eight months– you keep count– but if someone had asked you a year ago what you were going to be doing on this night, this wouldn’t even have been on your list of guesses. Or anywhere near it. 

Mando has always kept surprising you, always kept showing sides of himself that you didn’t know he had. The more time you spent with him, the more you came to realize that he was an incredibly nuanced person, and always had more going on under the surface that he didn’t let on. Sure, he had room to grow and open up, but you know now that the man before you was someone who was longing for something. Companionship, company, or just sex, you don't know. But he’s one of the most interesting people you’ve ever come across in all of your journeys across the galaxy. 

And once again, you’re overwhelmed with a feeling of anxiety. You don’t want to lose what you’re building together. And not just because of the _stuff_ you do together– though that’s a hefty fucking bonus– but because of this. Right here. The way that lights always dance around on his shiny exterior, the way you want to lift his helmet off right here in a crowd but you know that’s not ever going to be a possibility. The way… The Way. A thought randomly occurs to you, clearing the muddy thoughts.

“Aren’t you supposed to have like– a body with you? Or something?” You had assumed that he had secured the bounty since he was going to be headed back to the ship. And there’s no way he would have already gotten back to the ship and then back to you.

“I ran into some complications. There was no body left.” You know that shouldn’t be hot, but… it absolutely is. Your lips come together in a small _oh_ as you take it in. 

“You sure you don’t want some?” You ask, offering your spoon to him. “I can sneak you behind something.” 

“I’m good,” he says, and you can hear his smile through the words. You’ve come to a bit of an understanding now, a silent agreement between the two of you to make this relationship work. For now, it might just mostly be heated touches and flirty banter, but you feel hope tug at your heartstrings that it could be more. You haven’t had too much experience dating, your… _profession_ getting somewhat in the way, but you know that most of what you’re experiencing with him is not typical etiquette. You’ve never seen his face, don’t even know his name, but you let him blindfold you and spread your legs without a second thought. 

Yeah. Everything is weird. Which is probably why it takes you so long to figure out that you’re basically on a date with him right now. 

“I want you to come with me on the next hunt.” 

The words take a moment to process in your brain since your mental gears are still grinding through the idea of actually being on a date with him right now. 

“What’s the bounty?” You ask, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a quick answer. He’s trying to make it up to you for not taking you out more, for leaving you cooped up in the ship with only the kid and whatever entertainment you can find. 

Actually, he doesn’t know it, but while he was gone these past few days you managed to reread your favorite book. Twice. So that kept you entertained for a grand total of one day.

“Two males, mid-forties. Wanted for stealing some sort of weapons cargo. That’s pretty much all I know,” he reveals. 

“Hmm,” you say, pressing the spoon to your lips in imitation of thought. “Where?”

“Lothal.”

Lothal. A fairly empty planet, mostly just plains. But you’ve heard it can be beautiful, especially since the Imperial presence there was eradicated long ago by a valiant band of rebels. 

“What about the kid?” 

“I’m sure we could figure something out,” he says softly. You can tell he genuinely wants you to come with him, so you decide to stop playing with him. 

“Okay,” you state. “I’ll come. I’ve always wanted to pet a Loth-cat.” 

“How do you know so much about the nature of everywhere we go?” 

“What can I say? My second love is freaky animals,” you shrug.

He’s silent for a moment while you finish up the last few spoonfuls of the fried ice cream, letting the kid slip in a few bites. “What’s your first love?”

You look up at him with your lips parted, a blush coloring your cheeks. Well, that answers that question. 

“I don’t know. Probably… sleep?” The kid covers for your awkwardness though, letting out a loud belch. You both turn to him, your own eyes as wide as you imagine Mando’s are, in disbelief. “How can something so little make such a gross sound?” You wonder aloud. You have half a mind to look around and make sure that no one just heard what happened. 

He sighs loudly through the modulator as if to say _beats me_ , and pulls around the bottom of his cape to reach across the table, wiping the gooey ice cream from the kid’s mouth. 

“Mando, I say this with the utmost respect and dignity, but when was the last time you washed that cape?” You place both spoons in the bowl, clasping your hands together in front of you on the table. 

“Ha, ha,” he responds, dropping the cape back down. “You’re very _funny.”_ He stands up from the table, holding out his hand. But you feel very offended at his attack on your humor, so you just place the discarded bowl and spoons in his outstretched palm, giving him a look with your eyebrows raised and lips pursed. He quickly sweeps the trash into a nearby disposal, turning back to you expectantly. 

After securing the kid, you hop up and over to him, grabbing him by the vambrace and pulling him back towards the tram. Coronet City is all fine and well but you really, really want to get back to the ship. You’d spent a good part of today walking all around when you haven't used your legs to walk more than ten feet in, well, _days._

You were also eager to see how he would fulfill his promise to you, his whispered words as he was leaving the ship for the city all those days ago. As you near the station, you feel your walls flutter in response to the thought, pulling him harder. You let your hand slip down his arm to intertwine with his, locking your fingers together. The kid peeks his eyes out of the bag, looking around when you step onto the first available tram. 

You don’t talk much on the tram–it’s much too crowded for that. But, shit. You manage to find a seat in the back, and he stands in front of you holding onto the overhead railing. The kid’s passed out asleep in his little bag, completely dead to the world after a long adventure. 

There’s not enough cover, and you don’t think you would ever in a million years have the bravery to do it, but… From this angle, from where you’re sitting…

To put it simply, his dick is right in front of your face. 

You can’t help but stare, having a one-track mind right now. He’s shown you such kindness tonight, a softness that made your heart sing. He took you out for _ice cream_ for fuck’s sake, and… Well, the two of you are in the business of repaying favors to each other. You lick your lips and stare at it, evidentially for longer than you think, because the ding of the tram alerting you that you’re at your destination breaks you from your stupor. 

When you look up again, he’s staring straight at you through his visor. This time, it’s the Mandalorian that grabs you and leads you swiftly to the ship. He doesn’t stop, he doesn’t pay attention to anything else, just pushes you to the ship, muttering incoherently.

As soon as the ship is in sight, he’s pressing buttons on his vambrace to drop the hatch. Returning to the ship feels like going back to your bedroom and locking the door, coming to a safe and quiet place where no one can hurt you. It’s… nice. You turn to him, where he’s unstrapping weapons from himself, and gently remove the kid’s bag from yourself. 

“Hey,” you start. “I wanted to say, uh. Thank you for tonight. It was nice. No one’s been nice to me like that in a really long time.” He spins to face you, contemplating your timid stance and the way you’re looking directly at the floor. 

A finger hooks under your chin, lifting it to meet with the black T of his helmet. “You’re welcome. I want to do nice things for you. I’m… I’m trying.” 

It’s oddly romantic, the warm glow of the ship and the first real quiet you’ve heard in hours. The only noises are your own breathing and the faint snoring coming out of the child, and you press your lips together to keep from smiling too hard. 

“One more thing,” he says, reaching to grab a small parcel that you didn’t notice he had. “This is for earlier.” He hands the package off to you without further explanation, taking the kid from your hands and heading towards the ladder to the cockpit. “I’m going to put in the coordinates for Lothal and put this one to bed. You can open that now.” 

And you’re left on the lower deck of the ship, wondering what the hell you’re holding in your hands. The way he said it was less _you can open that now_ and more just _open that now._

Oh, well. It’s better to just open it and see, you guess. You have to use your teeth to pull on it a little but eventually get the packing loose. The first thing that comes out is… It’s practically the exact same shirt that you were wearing. One of your pajama shirts, and one of the more comfortable ones at that. It was just like the one he had taken and ripped to make a blindfold. 

You flush at the memory, tucking the shirt under your arm. He _had_ promised that he would buy you another one. But there’s something else in the package. Or maybe _two_ somethings? 

It’s stuck down at the bottom, and you end up just turning the parcel upside down and shaking it out. 

What drops to the floor– well. You almost fall over at the sight.

The Mandalorian is a sly bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's in the bag????
> 
> y'all's feedback means absolutely everything to me and also has tons of influence on where things go. if there's something you want to see or just something you really liked, let me know in the comments (or anonymously on my tumblr if that's more your style)
> 
> **** I also want to announce that I have updated my desktop theme on tumblr to display my UPDATE SCHEDULE in the left sidebar. this way you can keep tabs on the next chapter, and you don't even have to have an account for it! just click the link below :)
> 
> [my tumblr!](https://sunsetkenobi.tumblr.com)
> 
> -
> 
> references: 
> 
> [Iego/Angels](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Iego)  
> [Gravel-maggot](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gravel-maggot)  
> [Mynock](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mynock)  
> [Coronet City](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Coronet_City)  
> [Axial Park](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Axial_Park)  
> [Corellian Security Force](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corellian_Security_Force)  
> [Corellian fried ice cream](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corellian_fried_ice_cream)  
> [Lothal](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lothal)  
> [Loth-cat](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Loth-cat)


	4. love's for show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a hard journey, you finally land on Lothal. What you find there... isn't what you expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello welcome back. first of all i want to say how sorry i am for not updating for almost a month. i meant to have this chapter posted over two weeks ago, but unfortunately at that exact time my wisdom teeth decided they weren't having that and i had to have all four removed immediately. so that's where i've been but i'm back and alive now with this extra long chapter for you as a little christmas eve gift (if you celebrate! if not, totally cool, i'm just glad to share this!) i also benefited a lot from season 2 wrapping up, because now i know exactly where i'm going to take this story. 
> 
> enjoy! :)
> 
> ch. warnings: food/eating, a little bit of blood/discussion of injuries, fluff, and as always, smutty goodness

It takes exactly nine days, ten hours, nineteen minutes, and twelve seconds to travel from Corellia to Lothal. You know this because you did the math by hand using an old astrogation map you found and your own sheer wit.

Or– it should. Provided that you’re following the exact right hyperspace lanes and you’re navigating with a class one hyperdrive. Ashamedly, you don’t even know what class hyperdrive the ship has, and at this point, you’re too scared to ask. Plus, you’ve spent the last four hours sitting in front of the navicomputer and your eyes are starting to freeze in place. You’ve always been a better navigator than a pilot, but right now you’d trade all of your navigation skills to be able to yank the Crest out of hyperspace to do some barrel rolls. You don’t, though, because something tells you that that would maybe not go over very well. You swear to yourself that if you ever get your own ship, you’ll spend the first day doing all the flips and loops you want– which is maybe not the healthiest idea you’ve ever had, but neither is sitting in front of a navicomputer for this long.

You left Corellia four days ago, and right now you’re running completely on fumes. You haven’t even found the energy to even change clothes in the last two days, but then again, neither has the Mandalorian. After you left Corellia, you practically passed out from exhaustion from the adventure you’d had– much to your dismay since you had very big plans for yourself and Mando after you got out of the shower. It very much didn’t go that way, since you were completely passed out as soon as his arms wrapped around you when you stumbled into bed. When you woke up, it was _incredibly_ apparent that something was very wrong with the kid. 

_Fever, chills, cough, extreme thirst,_ you heard your exasperated voice say. _I can’t think of anything else it could be._ ‘It’ being Corellian Tanamen Fever. You’d personally been vaccinated against it, and it isn’t like Mando is going to catch _anything_ through that helmet, so you guess the kid just. Hadn’t been vaccinated. Weird. You get more clues about his past every day, but still have absolutely no idea how to put them together. It was actually kind of hilarious to explain this to the Mandalorian, who thought that the kid was surely going to die. 

He isn’t going to die. He’s just going to be an absolute pain in the ass until you get him some medicine.

Which, okay. Maybe it is your fault that you brought him out into a foreign world filled with pathogens that he’d never been exposed to. You briefly remember learning something about ‘antibodies’ when you were younger, but the Mandalorian nailed you with a judgemental stare when you tried to explain it to him, so you clearly weren’t a very good student. In your defense, this all would’ve been easily solved if Mando had picked up more E-bacta like he’d said he was going to months ago. (You pointedly ignored him when he pointed out that E-bacta probably wouldn’t even be safe for someone of the kid’s size, anyway. A few hours later you told him that you could just give the kid _part_ of the injection. That time, Mando ignored you.)

So it’s safe to say that things have been a little bit tense onboard for the past few days. The kid is almost always awake and requires constant attention, and you can’t stop flying because you really only have enough fuel and money to go directly to Lothal. Since stopping isn’t an option, so the two of you are taking turns nursing him to the best of your meager abilities. He rarely ever sleeps, and when he does it’s only for a few hours at a time while you and Mando have to try and squeeze in some shut-eye, too. 

You would do anything for the kid. You think you’d probably even die for him if you needed to. But dear _Maker_ if he wasn’t absolutely cockblocking you right now. You know he can’t help it, and you know he’s probably miserable, but. Fuck. 

It’s time for you to switch care duty with Mando. 

You’re in the cockpit leaning back in the pilot’s seat, having tried desperately to block out the sounds of wailing so that you could hopefully get a little bit of sleep. If you were on a planet, it would be about 0200 hours in standard time. You bang your head softly back against the headrest a few times before pushing up with both hands, forcing your body towards the ladder. It’s almost a miracle that you don’t fall down. 

Everything is quiet and dark in the hull, with only a few lights still on right now. You find your two crewmates asleep, the Mandalorian sprawled out across the floor so that his body is lying haphazardly across the main part of the ship. You almost step on his damn foot. The kid is wrapped up in a bundle of extra cloth, piled up on top of Mando’s stomach. 

It’s sweet, and for a second you take a mental picture of the two of them together. Mando has never looked more like a dad than in this moment, his paternal side completely evident where he’d clearly passed out on the spot when the kid did. You try to stifle a giggle at the visual, but the child evidently still has use of his absolutely massive ears even when he’s asleep and you see one of his eyes beginning to twitch open. 

Oops.

“Nonononono,” you whisper, trying to quiet him before he can start, but he just immediately starts coughing and wailing again. “Fuck.” 

Working out a kink in his neck, the Mandalorian rolls his helmet from side to side. You drop to the ground to try and do damage control, pulling the kid off of his lap and to your chest to _shush_ him. You rock him slowly and stroke his poor little bald head. The little booger can’t help it, and you feel bad that you can’t do more for him. 

“Good morning, starshine,” you say sarcastically down to Mando, a grin plastered on your face. You can’t come up with the energy to actually have anything to smile about, so it’s not genuine at all. “How long have you been out?”

“Maybe half an hour,” Mando answers, his voice rocky from sleep. He picks his head up off of the floor to face you but drops it back down with a large metallic _thud_ after a moment. You think that it must’ve had to hurt, or at least have rattled his brains around. “You look awful.” 

“Thanks,” you scoff. 

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he slurs, still only half-awake. “I meant. Let me keep the kid. You go get more sleep.” You once again can’t come up with the energy to actually be mad at him. It’s been a hard few days and you’re all burnt out, likely the kid most of all. You sigh heavily, scooting across the floor to him. 

“Lift your head.” Positioning yourself against a crate– and trying not to flush at the memories that rise– you make room for him to rest his helmet on your lap, your legs reaching out on either side of him. You keep holding the kid to your chest and lean back. A sudden shock runs through you as a tan, ungloved hand reaches out to grab your leg. He doesn’t do anything else, just leaves his hand there. He’s probably asleep again. 

The kid has gotten quiet, his breathing just a low rattle. You hold him close and place a small kiss on his face. 

Five more days.

* * *

You always thought that it was really cheesy in HoloNet movies when a character got off of a ship and immediately kissed the ground. That was until you landed on Lothal and _seriously_ considered doing it. 

The air on Lothal is crisp and clean and not anything at all like the stuffiness inside the Crest. You’d even showered in preparation for seeing other people again, taking the time to force Mando to do the same while you were at it. Now you stand at the bottom of the ramp, just staring out like an idiot. It’s the first time you’ve put on shoes in nine days.

“We need to come up with a plan,” Mando says, suddenly appearing behind you. “I’m thinking divide and conquer.” You turn to look at him, slinging the bag that you’ve now claimed over your shoulder. He looks shinier in the sunlight, you think to yourself. 

“Okay, sounds good. What do I need to do?” you ask. Even though he implied that you’d be thinking of a plan _together,_ you know that he’s probably had this completely mapped out for a few days now. 

“There should be a general store a few streets east out of the landing bay. Go there and ask for antibiotics.” He grabs your hand and drops a good amount of credits into your palm, closing your fingers around them. “I’ll get food and find somewhere for us to stay.” 

You want to ask why he’s finding you lodging since the Crest is literally _right here_. But you guess it makes sense, he doesn’t usually stay on the Crest when he knows it’s going to be a long hunt. Plus, you aren’t too opposed to getting out of her for a while and sleeping somewhere that you can stretch your legs out. 

“So you’ve been to Lothal before?” you ask. It seems like he knows quite a bit about the general geography of Capital City, which you guess wouldn’t be _weird_ considering his mind is a steel trap– most of the time.

“A few times. Can you do that for me?” You nod in affirmation, just itching to get out into the city. “Good. If you still have that communicator, let me know when you’re done. Otherwise, I’ll find you.” You do still have the communicator, having secured it to your wrist. You don’t want to know what his method for ‘finding you’ will be. 

“Who’s taking the kid?” One of you has to take him. It’s not like he can very well be on his own right now. The Mandalorian stares blankly at you like he forgot this factor in the equation after never having to worry about it since you were always back at the ship to make sure that he was okay. “I’ll go get him,” you sigh, smirking at Mando to let him know that it’s okay. He calls your name when you’re about halfway up the ramp. 

“I just wanted to say thank you,” he tells you. “This last trip, I know it wasn’t easy. And that most people would’ve bailed when we made planetfall.” 

You look at him dead-on, your lower body still pointed towards the cargo hold. Your eyes wander up to the sky– it’s a beautiful blue and the clouds are so fluffy that they look like they were painted on– before looking back down to him. 

“I won’t leave you, I promise,” you say, and keep walking back into the ship with a reassuring smile. You hear his footsteps as he walks away, entrusting you to lock up. 

It only takes you about 20 minutes to wrangle the kid into submission and find the store, a quaint little building of the same tan color as most of the city. Lothal really is a beautiful planet, and feels much less busy and polluted than some of the places you’ve been to. The citizens even smile at you as you walk past, an overall happier attitude running through them after more than a decade free from Imperial terror. You find it really… charming. 

The kid is almost totally passed out by the time you walk in, a little bell ringing above the door when you walk in. A friendly-looking old man greets you from behind the counter, and you give him a small wave. Though there may not be an _official_ Imperial presence here anymore, you can never be too careful about drawing attention when you have the kid. You’re in work mode, though, so you once again have your blaster tucked in the waistband of your pants. 

Sometimes, secretly, you itch to just shoot it again. Not _at_ anyone. You don’t want to actually kill someone. But it would be very cool to disintegrate a poor, unfortunate rock. 

Scanning the shelves, you quickly find the medicine you’re looking for. You’d love to be able to just dunk the kid in a bacta tank, but that would definitely attract unwanted eyes and require credits that you don’t have. When you place the small bottle onto the counter, the man offers you another smile. 

“Find everything you need?” he asks, ringing up your item. 

“Oh, uh, yes. Thank you,” you respond, pulling a few of the credits out and counting them in your hand when he tells you how much you owe. 

“Not from around here, hmm?” You look up to him, dropping the credits into his outstretched hand. 

“How could you tell?” you ask sheepishly. A knowing smile spreads onto his face. 

“Off-worlders just have that look,” he tells you. “So what is it then, business or pleasure?” 

Mando might have reprimanded you for it, you honestly don’t know. But you have such a soft spot for those who are kind to others, and he seems genuinely interested in your story. Maybe they don’t get a lot of tourists here. You don’t know why they wouldn’t– a warm feeling has rested in your chest ever since landing. 

“Hopefully both,” you joke. You share a small laugh with the man. 

“I hope so, too. Good day.”

Telling him goodbye in return, you grab the medicine and shove it down– careful not to disturb the kid– into your bag. The sunlight shines on your face as you step out of the store and you take a second to contemplate your next move.

Does it make you a bad person if you don’t want to comm Mando yet? You honestly aren’t ready to get to work. It’s nerve-wracking, to say the least, having never _really_ tracked down a serious bounty with him. Sure, you’ve helped, almost always in the form of keeping the engines warm so he can make a quick getaway, but this is different. You have no idea how much he’s going to be expecting of you– you just hope that your skills are still what they used to be. 

When you were younger, you’d always wanted to explore the galaxy. It had always seemed so beautiful, especially after growing up on Bespin, where all you can see for miles in every direction are gas, clouds, and gas clouds. At the first chance you got, you… _commandeered_ a ship, taking off as far as possible. There wasn’t much left for you there and you wanted to put your feet on solid ground, as much solid ground as possible. With no credits and just a small ship (that was technically ‘stolen,’ even though it was almost completely defunct when you found it) to your name, you ended up falling in with the wrong crowds. That’s when you tend to stop thinking about your past. 

You start wandering aimlessly along the street, taking in all of the different vendor booths. You think you’re in some kind of rich people merchant district if all of the gaudy clothing displayed in the windows is anything to go by. The only few things that you’d heard about Lothal indicated that it was almost a wasteland by the time the Empire was done here, but it seems to have flourished in the years since. You walk past a store selling shoes that you’d definitely break your neck trying to walk in, the next window showing that they also sell glittering jewelry, and the next–

Stop. Stop _everything._ There’s no fucking way. You have stumbled somehow into the exact perfect spot on Lothal. Things could not have fallen more into place. Something wicked brews in your mind as your commlink buzzes on your wrist. 

“Hey,” you say before he can start talking. “I’m just getting finished up here. Don’t worry, I found the stuff.” 

“Okay,” his voice rings out through the line. “Can you meet me at the cantina near the square?” _Way to be specific._

“Yep, see you there!” you shout into your commlink before shutting it off and practically running into the store. A rich, fruity smell floods your senses as the door closes behind you, and you duck into the rows of clothes. You don’t know exactly what type of people shop here, but you probably don’t currently look like the target demographic. 

They have all sorts of garments suited for all of the different species on Lothal– a variety of shapes and cuts to complement the different body types. But you’re set on one thing in particular, something that’s probably in the back. 

As you approach the display on the furthest wall, you inwardly congratulate yourself on being such a damn genius. Sometimes it actually hurts to be this smart. Scanning over the racks, you search for something that’s just _perfect._ Something to make him pay for the stunt he pulled on Corellia. 

It haunted you every. Single. Night. That you were trapped on that ship with a sick, crying baby. Every night that you wanted to reach for him but were too tired or felt too gross to– or the few times that you actually did reach for him but the kid used his preternatural abilities to sense what you were doing and wake up– it just sat there in the back of your mind. It was like you were a prisoner to it. 

When you had reached down into the bag, you really didn't know what to expect. Clean socks, maybe, or a nice new shirt for him. 

You were absolutely _not_ expecting the silk blindfold and nightgown that fell out. 

They were lacy and red and so unlike anything you’ve ever owned before and your heart had gotten lodged in your throat immediately. You almost couldn’t believe what you were seeing, that things like that would be _allowed_ by the universe to exist on the Razor Crest, to be held in the Mandalorian’s hands. It got even worse when you’d realized that he would’ve had to purchase them. 

You can see it now– the thought of him, a Mandalorian completely bulked up in armor with weapons strapped across his body, standing in a frilly store just like this one. Stalking the rows and picking out something he’d liked, something he’d thought you’d like. Bringing them to whatever poor soul was working that day. You rub the back of your neck at the thought, trying to find something to go with what’d he’d brought you. 

No, even better. Something that would outshine them. You’d wear the nightgown, keep the blindfold off for long enough that you could see his reaction when you slipped everything off to reveal… yes. Those. Your eyes catch on a set, a scandalous pair of panties and a matching bra. Those will do perfectly. 

You do a quick check to make sure the kid’s still asleep, then snatch them up before anyone else can see them, even if no one else is around.

* * *

Despite the less than intuitive directions you were given, you find the cantina with relative ease. It’s old, probably older than a lot of the buildings around, and a few stories tall. You have to go down a set of stairs immediately upon entering to get to the bar. A dated tactic– it keeps prying eyes away from the goings-on. It also keeps the infrastructure safe from bomb shocks. There’s a small landing just in front of the door before the stairs, another flight of them going up. 

You file that information away for later. Cantinas are always a good source for information, and you somehow have the feeling you’ll be in this one a lot during your stay.

It’s still early in the evening and there aren’t too many patrons milling around aside from a few Lothalians of various species sitting at the old stone tables, a couple playing a hand of Sabacc. The Mandalorian sits straight ahead at the bar, his broad frame hunched over. He looks simultaneously so out of place and so much like he fits perfectly into your world. Like he should stay in your line of sight forever… but you can’t afford thoughts like that. Not when you aren’t sure how long this could last between you.

You walk over to him, the bartender coming into sight as you do. She’s a gorgeous Twi’lek, a powder blue color that compliments the dark clothes she wears. A glass is held in her hands as she polishes it, and it looks like she’s laughing at something Mando said. You slide a hand onto the counter, alerting him to your presence before hopping up into one of the too-tall stools. He turns to you suddenly, and you give him a small smile, lifting your shoulder bag into your lap. You’re careful not to wake the child, not wanting to give everyone in the cantina an unsolicited screaming show. 

“Hey,” you say. Your little surprise for him is tucked precariously underneath the kid, hidden against the bottle of antibiotics that you haven’t worked up the courage to try and give to him yet. Just knowing the lingerie is there burns a hole in your head, and you have to put in effort not to burst at the seams. Logically you know that you can’t even see his eyes– or any part of his face, really– but you’re always ready to break under his stare. He makes all of your secrets feel loose, ready to slip out of your fingers at a moment’s notice. 

“Hi. I was beginning to wonder where you got off to.” He knows. He definitely knows, and you should just give up right now because you’re never going to be able to pull it off. You don’t have the backbone and when you’re alone with him you just–

“Oh!” A bell-like voice chirps. “Is this your traveling companion?” You turn to the Twi’lek who just spoke to you, finding a bright grin on her face. She really is beautiful, all wide-eyed with perfect features, her smile looking like it belongs to one of the HoloNet models you’ve seen and not to a bartender on an Outer Rim planet. You briefly wonder how she got here and how she knows your Mandalorian. 

“That would be me,” you answer before he can, and her gaze drifts over to you. “In the flesh.” 

“It’s so great to finally meet you. Mando has just been telling me about you. I am Dia.” She holds a hand out to you in greeting, which you shake gingerly. Her voice has the same lilt and beat of Twi’leks who’ve spent a lot of time on Ryloth, the accent that you’ve heard on friends who haven’t been home in a while but always somehow revert back to when they’re angry. You tell her your name back. 

“All good things, I hope,” you say tightly, turning back to Mando, who’s already looking at you. “I thought you said you were going to find food or whatever.” You wave a hand around in the air in reference to how he literally has nothing with him. 

“Everything is already upstairs.” You scratch your face, and he picks up on the confused expression that comes over you. “There’s an empty apartment up there, top floor. That’s where we’re staying. I put our bags up there, too.” He presses a small key into your hand, a little token that you tuck into a pocket.

“Oh, huh. Well. I got the meds for the kid, but he’s sleeping, so. That’s something we can do whenever.” 

You almost purposefully ignore the Twi’lek and her cheeriness, something that you just don’t have the fuel reserves to reciprocate after the last nine days of hell that you’ve had. You honestly just want to crawl into whatever bed you find upstairs, an apartment sounding absolutely delicious right now. Unfortunately, what also sounds delicious is some fucking _food,_ which becomes known to more people than just yourself when your stomach very audibly growls. 

“When was the last time you ate?” he asks immediately, leaning back with arms crossed. Shit, you don’t even know. 

“When was the last time _you_ ate?” you shoot back, also crossing your arms in defense. 

“You two really are too cute,” Dia cuts in. “Here, let me get you something. On the house.” She strides away towards an archway behind the counter to what you assume is a kitchen. You sit silently for a moment, appraising. 

“She seems nice. You didn’t tell me you have friends here,” you tease, only slightly prying from the gentle tugs at your heart. You aren’t jealous. You have no reason to be. 

“I said I’ve been here before,” he says, still looking at you heavily.

That’s an out, and you know it. He’s deliberately dancing around giving you answers, like how he knows the streets so well or how he’s buddy-buddy with a bartender in an old cantina. It wouldn’t bother you except that it means there was something else here for him that he feels like he can’t tell you about, something other than a past hunt. Because he would just say if it was a past hunt. 

You figure that you can’t be too upset or read too much into it. There are things that you haven’t told him, either, and wouldn’t exactly want to reveal before you’re ready. You want him to feel like he can talk to you freely, so you decide to drop it for now, holding his stare. 

“We need to get started on this case today,” he states, breaking the silence and leaning forward over the bar again. The overhead lights hang low and gleam off of his helmet, which he must’ve polished since you’ve seen it last. It used to be covered in baby snot. “We’ll do more work tomorrow, but I want to scope the general area tonight.” 

“Are you going to give me more details about who we’re looking for?” You draw circles on the rough surface of the bar with your finger, secretly praying that Dia will hurry up with finding you food. It doesn’t hurt to have a friend, especially one that brings you free grub. 

“Not here,” he says, and you’re reminded that you’re really not on the Crest anymore, where he can pull out bounty pucks all he likes and no one will raise an eyebrow. Except maybe the kid, but he doesn’t really have eyebrows.

You’re out in the world again. It’s a weird feeling after being so sheltered, your only two real worries having been that Mando got home safe and the kid was taken care of. Out here, there are keen eyes and ears that stay searching for trouble, ghosts in shadows waiting to pounce. You know it’s a gloomy outlook, but it’s the way that you’ve had to think to stay alive. 

It almost surprises you how quickly you can slip back into your old ways of thinking, but years on offense can do that to a person. 

A flash of blue appears before you as Dia brandishes a full plate of… baked cushnip and fral? Which, to be honest, you have absolutely no idea what either one of those things really is, but you’ve had them before and you would eat a whole bantha right now. So there’s no room for complaints as you carefully remove the kid’s bag from your body, passing it over to the Mandalorian and digging into the dish.

“So, what brings you out here? A hunt?” Dia asks, leaning forward over the bar. 

“Something like that,” Mando answers. 

“Well, let me know if I can help at all.” 

You look up at them, eyes flitting between each figure with a slightly piqued interest. There’s something about the way that she gravitates over towards him and away from you that just… doesn’t make you feel right. But you still aren’t jealous. 

“Has there been any syndicate activity on Lothal lately?” the Mandalorian asks lowly, careful to protect his words from others. The closest patrons are still on the other side of the bar, so it’s probably fine, but… 

“Hmm,” Dia contemplates, drumming her long fingers. “There was an incident a few weeks back.” 

“What constitutes an ‘incident’?” you butt in, shoving your empty plate away. They both give you a look that reads as _you’re already done?_ But you harden your expression on the same cold investigating look. Dia stands up a little straighter as Mando looks at her too, silently asking the same question. 

“We had a large storage facility that was filled with Tibanna gas,” she begins. You already know exactly where this is going. You grew up next to a Tibanna gas _refinery_ , dammit. “They swept in and took it all. There was a big shootout, but they got away.” 

You’ve seen it happen plenty of times, especially growing up where you did. The stupidest thing that anyone can do with Tibanna gas– the ammunition for most modern weapons– is leave it sitting around. If there’s going to be a delay in getting it to the buyer, it has to change hands. Frequently. This means that the seller has to have a trusted circle of accomplices, one of the reasons why there’s so much money in the gas and so few sellers. 

“Which syndicate?” the Mandalorian asks. Dia looks uncomfortable, but she promised to help however she could. And it’s not like this would be uncommon knowledge in the city.

“Crimson Dawn,” she answers. 

Your ears start ringing. A lifeless chill comes over your body. 

“Weapons trafficking, most likely,” Mando sighs, but nothing about you feels right anymore. You think you may have missed a part of the conversation– your bones feel too cold, your skin feels too bare, and your eyes feel wet and tight. It’s like something in you is trying to rip its way out. 

“Probably. They’ve been losing power in the last few years.” Dia is right. None of the syndicates are what they used to be since the Empire fell. And it’s only going to get worse for them as the New Republic tries to close its fist around the Outer Rim. 

“Are they still around here?” 

“Don’t think so. No one’s heard from them since.” Her voice trails off. You can’t see either of them through the blur the world has become. You think you might be dizzy, the room is spinning– “Tell me you’re not here to take on a crime syndicate.”

“I’m not. I’m pulling a bounty for a syndicate.” The lights are spinning around above you. Were they doing that before?

“Which one?” 

“The Hutts.”

The Hutts. Okay, you can live with the Hutts. That’s easy. That’s fine. You have no quarrel with the Hutts. But your heart feels like it’s going to forsake you at any minute and beat right out of your chest onto the stone ground. 

“I’m going to be upstairs,” you hear yourself say. It’s not your brain that picks you up onto your feet, it’s not your brain that carries you away from the bar and towards the stairs. It’s your survival instinct, the ancient wiring of the human body that helps it stay alive. “Come get me when we’re leaving.”

The ringing in your ears turns into a shriek. If either one of them calls after you, you don’t know it. Once your feet hit the top of the first set of stairs, you break into a full sprint up the rest of them. Your hands are numb and fumble to pull out the key the Mandalorian gave you, but you shove it into the lock and twist so hard that you think it’ll break. 

Locks slide into place one by one after you slam the door shut. You feel nothing but the floor pressing up against your knees when you hit it, and you try to remember how to breathe.

* * *

“Why didn’t you tell me that you took a job for a syndicate?”

“Didn’t think it was that important.”

You look over to the Mandalorian with a glare. “Of course it’s fucking _important._ Do you know the power they hold?”

“The Hutts haven’t held that power in years.” Great. He’s stupid now. He probably has brain rot from wearing that damn helmet all the time. You let out a hefty sigh, readjusting on your elbows. 

The sun glows a hot orange across the grasslands as it sets. You’re on top of a rooftop, laid on your stomach and peering over the edge _very_ carefully. When he had come up to you to tell you that you were heading out, you’d managed to get a grip on your bearings. You donned your dark cloak, pulling it down to obscure most of your face as you scaled the building you’re on– something residential, you think. A soft breeze rolls through, fluttering the soft fabric in the wind. You’re envious of the Mandalorian and his beskar vambraces– at least he doesn’t have ferrocrete digging into his forearms. 

“What are we looking for?” You’ve been up here for probably half an hour with almost nothing to go on. He’d told you to _keep your eyes open_ in that gruff, all-commanding voice of his and you’d obeyed dutifully, but at this point, you were so sick of looking down on streets where nothing interesting was happening that you were only keeping your eyes open for potential Loth-cat sightings. 

You have a plan to catch one. You do not have a plan for how you’re going to convince Mando to let you keep it. 

“Two bounties. Male. Both human, mid-forties. Stole weapons from the Hutts.” 

“You see, the thing is, all of that information you just told me? I already knew it.” His helmet glints as he faces you before reaching down and grabbing something from his belt. Two bounty pucks materialize before you, the faces of the wanted men appearing in holographic blue. You study their faces, trying to commit them to memory. Gloved hands reach back out and sweep them up. 

“Let me know if you need to see them again,” he teases, and you lightly kick his boot with your own.

“You suck.” 

“Maybe. But you swallow.”

Did he just– Fuck. He _did._ Everyone thinks he’s just the poster boy for stoicism and aloofness, but you know him very, very differently. Underneath all that armor, there’s a filthy mind prepared to strike at literally any moment. 

“I am going to choose to ignore that you just said those words to me,” you say slowly, rocking back and forth to relieve some of the tension building up in your body. “Did they at least steal any fun weapons?”

“I don’t think I consider any weapons to be _fun,”_ he argues. You have the inkling of a feeling that he’s just arguing with you for the sake of arguing with you. He just wants to be contrary. You don’t know what’s exactly bothering him– if this is just how he usually is when he’s on hunts or if he’s not used to having another person with him to hold him back. So you’re stuck in a tug-of-war with him while you wait for… whatever it that you’re looking for. He’d hit some sort of button on his helmet to scan the meager crowds better, while you’re doing things the old fashioned way and looking with your own two eyes. That’s what you’d always been taught. You can’t rely too much on technology. 

You’d think a man who has such a peculiar distaste for droids would understand that.

“Aren’t you the one who said that your weapons are _an extension of your body?_ ” You drop your voice to imitate his rough baritone, and this time you’re the one getting your boot kicked. You probably deserved that one, though. 

“They are an extension of my body,” he finally agrees. A family of Devaronians walk past, the mother and father each holding one of the daughter’s hands, swinging her back and forth through the air. They’re happy and smiling and for a second you feel a stab of resentment. Where did… where did _that_ come from? It’s gone as soon as it comes, but it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. 

“What?” you ask. He’d said something while you were completely spaced out.

“They’re an extension of my body. But that doesn't mean that they have to be fun,” he repeats. You turn back to the streets below. 

Sometimes he gives you a little glimpse of what’s going on in his head. It’s like being a little kid again and seeing your parents’ door cracked at night. You go to peek through, drawn towards the bright, warm light, but the door is shut in your face before you can see anything you aren’t supposed to. As soon as you think you understand him, he pulls the rope attaching you to him right out of your hand and you have to go running for it again. He’s a perfect example of that right now– pulling the door open just a little bit, but if you asked him to elaborate, you know he’d change the subject. 

You open your mouth to say something, but something catches in your peripheral vision. “Look there,” you blurt, keeping your arm close to your chest but pointing towards a street corner. “Aren’t those our guys?”

He scoots closer to you, activating the scope in his helmet. 

“Good catch.” You try not to look too pleased with yourself.

They’re both clothed simply. Human. One is taller, more clean-shaven. The shorter one is burly and slumped over. You guess back injury– no, shoulder. Right shoulder. The tall one stands with his hands behind his back, probably used to being the talker out of the two. 

“What’s the plan? Grab and go?” you ask. It wouldn’t make much sense. If it was this easy, he wouldn’t have set you up in the apartment above the cantina. That sort of commitment indicated that he was planning on staying at least one night. 

“No,” he shakes his head. “We need to find out where they’re keeping the stolen weapons.” 

“We could just grab them and… interrogate them?” you offer up. He angles towards you, the black visor somehow a deeper shade than you ever remember.

“Probably. That’s not really my style anymore. Besides, I like it here,” he says, deactivating the scope on his helmet. “So we’re going to take the scenic route and follow them. See where they’re staying. Think you can stay quiet?”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckfuck _fuck_ him. That last sentence, he one hundred percent said it like that on purpose, with that voice feels like being dunked under hot water. He knows you’ve been blue-balled for over a week now, and he wants to fuck with you. You just hope that he also wants to _fuck you._

“Too bad you won’t get to find out. They’re splitting up,” you point out smugly. 

“Dank _farrik,”_ he curses, pushing to his feet. “Keep your comm on. You follow that one east. I’ll follow that one west.” 

“Yes sir,” you say as you stand up, mock saluting. He whips around to face you for a split second before hopping onto the roof ladder. Interesting. You make sure to keep a mental note of that for later before you slide down the ladder too. He’s already gone, and you take off in the opposite direction. 

This part of Capital City isn’t exactly the best for stealthing around, so you’ll have to do this the hard way. You reluctantly pull the hood down from your dark cloak, trying to smooth down your hair. In your head you cook up a cover story: you’re going for an evening walk. That’s all. It’s simple. Just an evening walk from where you live a few blocks over to… wherever it is he’s going. You’re trailing the shorter one, who thankfully doesn’t walk too fast. 

Though you’re not proud of it, your earlier days in the seedier side of the galaxy consisted of a _lot_ of pickpocketing. You find all the old movements again, going through the same motions that you used to do when you’d found a worthy target. Relaxed stride, keep tension out of the arms and legs. Don’t look at any one thing for too long, but let your eyes linger on things that would draw a normal person’s attention. 

The man– you didn’t really bother to learn his name, but you’re absolutely not going to be asking Mando to let you see the puck again– unknowingly leads you in a line through the city. You end up only a few sectors away from where you’re staying yourself, watching as the man punches a code into a keypad, opening a door that slides closed behind him. You keep walking so that you don’t attract any attention. 

So that’s where he’s staying. The house (if you can call it that) is one of a series of connected units in a row. A group of children plays outside, waggling fake swords around at one another. 

Once you’re far enough away, you get some understanding about where you are and think you can find your way back to the apartment easily enough. Raising your comm to your lips, you press the button that opens the channel to the Mandalorian’s vambrace. 

“You there?” you ask quietly. Not that many people are around, but you don’t really want to look like you’re talking to yourself. 

“I’m here,” he answers. He sounds out of breath, like he’s been running. For a second you feel like neither of you really thought through what it would look like if an armored Mandalorian was running through the streets of Capital City. “This one hopped on a speeder.”

Stunning image of Mando trying to stay hidden while chasing down a speeder aside, you update him on where your target ended up. 

“That’s good, we have somewhere to place him. It’s going to be dark out soon, you should go ahead and head back to Dia’s.” You don’t have the heart to tell him that that’s where you were going anyway.

“Got it. When will you be back?” With a spring in your step, you start practically skipping back to the apartment. It sounds like you’re going to have the night off, and your stomach flutters as all of the pieces begin to fall into place for your plan.

“An hour, maybe longer. I forgot the mynock on the Crest, so I have to go back and get that,” he says, his heavy breathing slowing down a little bit. It warms your heart that he’s going back for that raggedy stuffed animal, but also puts even more speed into your step as you remember that you’ll have to take care of the kid first if you want your plan to work.

“Alright, just let me know when you’re headed back.” 

The Mandalorian agrees and you close the line, picking up into a jog towards the cantina. 

* * *

A lot of people believe that mirrors can be windows into alternate realities. Some think that when you’re in front of a mirror, you’re facing yourself from that other dimension, moving on a different timeline but always destined to end up in the same place, staring at each other but never allowed to touch. You don’t particularly buy into this theory, but if you did, you certainly hope that the other version of yourself is feeling a lot more confident right now than you currently are. 

The refresher in the apartment is fairly large, especially compared to what you’re used to on the ship. You’d managed to take a quick shower, scrubbing every bit of Lothalian dirt you could from your skin and toweling off in a frenzy. The kid had been due for another round of his medicine, which put him straight to sleep. You said a loving prayer that for both of your sakes he’d stay that way through the night, clicking the button to close his carrier. 

You’ve been pacing the living room for what feels like twenty minutes. The apartment is nice, even comfortable by your standards. There’s a small kitchenette by the doorway, leading into the room you’re in now. It’s sparsely decorated but you did lay on the couch for a minute, giving it your seal of approval. A hallway to the left leads to the bedroom and the refresher. It hasn’t been that long since the Mandalorian had beeped in and told you that he was heading your way, and you only take a moment to wonder how you keep getting yourself into these situations. 

There’s almost not going to be any going back. You only have a few minutes to make up your mind: are you going to go through with this? Your heart hammers in your chest– you _need_ to calm down. You’re going to go through with this. You are. You just have to calm down first. 

Ah, fuck it. 

You make a beeline for the bedroom, finding your way through the dimly lit space. All the blinds are pulled shut to keep anyone on the streets from looking up and seeing your naked body illuminated in the windows. It’s completely dark outside, and you relax by pretending like you’re an evil villain plotting a diabolical plan– which, you kind of are.

Your bag is still where you’d thrown it on the other side of the bed, strategically placed to look empty. A quick dig into the bottom, though, and you’re pulling out the stars of the show tonight. Earlier, you could barely bring yourself to look directly at the lingerie. The pieces were.... staring you down. They’re still staring you down. They hold their own sort of power, an intimidation factor that sets bells ringing in your head. Closing your eyes as tight as they’ll go, you suck in one final breath before pulling them on.

The top is its own entity entirely. The straps are the same dark red as the cups, crisscrossing across your skin in a pattern that makes you look like a present wrapped up with silky ribbon. The panties are the same way, the sides coming up tantalizingly around your waist. And for the big finish, the whole set is made almost entirely of a red mesh material. Your nipples push up against the balconette bra, completely visible from the outside, as well as. Well. Certain things in your lower region. 

“I look fucking ridiculous,” you say out loud, even though there’s no mirror in the bedroom and you really have no idea what you look like. From down the hallway, you hear the door unlocking and heavy footsteps entering the apartment. All sense leaves your brain. You have to move, _now._ The original plan was to put on that lace nightgown thing that was probably even more ridiculous than what you’re wearing right now, but you don’t know where it is and there’s no time to go looking for it while keeping your cool. 

Your only option is to dive for one of the Mandalorian’s shirts that’s laying askew over his bag, discarded earlier and forgotten about. You shove it on faster than should be humanly possible, the long black fabric hitting somewhere between your mid and top thigh. It covers everything you need it to, and just in time, as he stumbles into the doorframe of the bedroom. 

“Hey,” you say, turning to face him, careful not to move too fast or look too on-alert. 

“Can you help me?” he rasps. He’s using one arm to keep himself up in the doorframe, the other one clutched to his side. Everything in you blanks completely again as you race to flip the light on in the room, seeing that his gloved hand is covering a bloodstain. 

Oh. Oh shit. 

“What are you– What happened?” you ask incredulously. You’re shoving him towards the bed instinctually, pushing him into a seated position. His gloves are pulled off of his hands by your own, but you don’t really feel them as they move methodically, pulling him away from the wound. You have to see it, lay your eyes on it and fix it and make it go away. 

He says your name once, but you keep moving. 

You’re yanking his belt off, pulling at the different pieces of armor covering the flesh that you need to see. You don’t know if this is allowed by his Creed or what the consequences of you seeing more of his skin that just his hands would be, but all your brain can focus on are the splotches of crimson across his side, which you now see are speckled across his armor and pants. But nothing can happen to him. He can’t be hurt. You won’t let him.

He says your name again, this time gently, but firmly grabbing your face in his hands. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. Look at me,” he says. Your face is pointed up towards him, but your eyes have traveled back down to the wound that he really needs to let you see. A tender stroke of his thumb on your cheek convinces you to lift your gaze. “The blood isn’t mine.”

“It’s all over you–” 

“It’s not _mine,_ ” he repeats. Your lips part and your face tightens as you tear it from his hands, taking a second look at him. “There was an accident at the docking bay. Someone got really hurt. It wasn’t me.”

Now that you look again, the stains don’t really look like they’ve soaked all the way through the fabric of his clothes. And there’s no way his own blood could have gotten on his armor unless he was _seriously_ hurt, and then there probably wouldn’t be any way that he would have been able to drag himself back to you. 

All you can manage is a breathy, “What?”

“A man. He was hurt in a mechanical accident. I pulled him from the ship. He got help. It’s okay, the blood _isn’t mine,”_ he says. He breaks it down into smaller sentences because he knows you and he knows that you won’t be able to process more than a few words at a time when you’re like this. He’ll be able to tell you the unabridged version of the story later, but for now, this simple version will suffice. He’s safe. He’s not hurt and you don’t have to patch him back together, you don’t have to hold him in your hands and make sure that he stays conscious–

You’re being pulled into his lap, all of your limbs having gone limp. The dark T of his helmet is locked onto you, and you wish desperately that you could see his face. You settle for bringing a hand to his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his breath. The beskar is cold and hard as you bring your forehead to his.

“You scared the shit out of me,” you breathe, tears finally welling in your eyes. They spill out, large and searing and dooming you to a fate that you don’t know you can accept. Each one of them is just a drop in the bucket, filling a sea that appears to you every so often in a recurring nightmare. A dream where you’ve had to try and save him a million times and failed each attempt. 

“I’m okay,” he reassures you, pulling you close as sobs rack through you. You curl into him subconsciously, holding him as close as you can while your body tries to catch up with your mind. You cry into his shoulder until you’re out of tears and you have no more, and he holds you through the whole thing, wiping your face every so often. 

One of you is going to have to speak eventually. This moment could capture you in it forever, the ecstasy you feel at him being unharmed swirling together with whatever else your other feelings are. You feel the words behind your lips, prepared to slip out and potentially wreck everything, but still you push up to face him.

“Do you– D’you need to talk about it?” he asks, and you let out a suppressed laugh. How he’s figured out about the mess you’ve got going on behind the scenes, you don’t know. Maybe a man fated to mask himself forever becomes better at reading faces, at seeing the delicate intricacies behind each twinge and bend in someone’s expression. 

“It’s nothing really,” you say weakly, shaking your head at him. Your sniffling doesn’t do much to sell that point. 

“It doesn’t look like it’s nothing,” he says. The modulated voice is smooth but rough at the same time, and it feels like it sticks to you. You can feel everything about to start pouring out and work to immediately shove a mental dam in. 

“A long time ago,” you start, looking down at your lap, “I lost someone really important to me. To injuries similar to what I thought you had.” 

He nods once, the understanding that can only be found in someone who’s also witnessed people with brutal wounds.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, his arms squeezing tight where they’re wrapped around you. 

“But you could so easily be taken away from me.”

“Is that what’s bothering you? You think I’m going to get taken away from you?”

You choke on whatever you were about to say, the words getting stuck in your throat. You can feel your resolve cracking, the promise you’d made to yourself to enjoy things while you had them– and not push them any further than necessary– growing thin. 

It hits you in a moment of brief clarity. You’re wiping your eyes with the backs of your hands, trying to steady your breath, when all of sudden... there it is. The words you’ve been looking for all along to describe whatever the hell it is you’ve been feeling for him, even since your first week on the ship. 

“I just feel like,” you start, before deciding that’s bad, and starting over. Everything is about to come rushing out at once and you’re risking severely overwhelming him, but it has to be said. You look at him directly in the visor, hoping to the maker that you’re looking into his eyes. “There are so many people in this galaxy who are just... alone. They have nobody. They might have a place to call home, but places don’t matter. People matter. But they don’t have people. I was that person. After that loss, I thought I would always be that person. Just never being able to open up to anyone ever again.”

He’s sitting patiently, staring right back at you. It’s intimidating, but you don’t lower your gaze, even as he runs his hands across your legs. 

“But now,” you continue, “I’m not alone. I don’t feel alone. The galaxy doesn’t feel endless and giant and horrible, and like I could find a home here. And now I have somebody. Well,” you laugh, pointing up towards the living room where the child is sleeping. “One and a half somebodies. And I feel like. I feel like this is good. Like this is right. With you, it’s... it’s where I could belong. And I wasn’t prepared to lose you like that. To something like stray blaster fire or whatever.”

You don’t know what else to say after that, choosing now to avert your eyes from him in favor of staring at the hand laying across his chest plate. “I understand if you don’t feel the same, or if the Creed-“ 

“Din.” You feel his arms tighten around you as he utters the syllable. He pulls you close, burying the helmet into the junction of your shoulder and neck. 

“I- What was that?” You ask. 

“Din. My name. Din Djarin.” He says it more firmly this time, more assured in his statement. You’re a tiny bit floored, the breath leaving your body at his admission. 

“Din jar-ren,” you say, testing the name out on your lips. The two simple words he offers you– his name– somehow hold exactly as much weight as the hundred that you just gave him. “That’s, wow. Um.” He stops you before you can go any further, though. 

“You can use it, if want. Between us. Because I know what you mean. I-I’ve always been one of those people, the ones who don’t have anybody. But you’ve given me somebody. You’ve given me a home.” 

“But the Creed,” you begin. He says your name thoughtfully, purposefully. 

“Do you see any other Mandalorians here to stop me?” He asks. And no, you don’t. There aren’t any. You think you’re going to start crying again, and you might even already be. What he’s telling you... it’s shaking your very being. All these past few weeks where you’ve been scared that you’re going to spook him or that he would push you away, they all lead to this. 

“Thank you,” you sputter. “For trusting me. I know that can’t be easy.” He sinks his helmet further into your neck in response. “How... long has it been since someone has said your name?” You ask, gently. 

“Mmm. Decades,” he answers, after mulling it over for a second. 

“Well. I feel very special now,” you mumble, mostly to yourself. 

He pulls his head out to look at you, tilting to the side to get a better look at you. The sounds of stragglers in the city below you and the reflection of the warm apartment lighting off of the beskar are the only things filling your senses, your mind reeling from trying to process that _he trusted you with his name._ And that he thinks you’re... his home?

“Cyar’ika... don’t you already know that?”

“Know what?”

“How damn special you are,” he says, increasing his grip on your thighs. “You’ve given me so much. So much that I never asked for, or even deserve. Before you, I rarely even slept or ate. I don’t know how to explain to you what you mean to me. To the kid.” 

And you want to tell him. Tell him about the nightmares you’d had, the ones where ghosts from your past life took him from you. Where he left you, or you left him. How you give him all of the things he’s talking about because of how special he is, how unlike any other man you’ve met before he is. How his being shaped by the Creed has left a person so scarred but so capable of love and being loved, and how you think that’s where this is heading for you. But the words jumble together in your head and he’s already offered you so much tonight that you don’t want to push it, and you just say, “Din.” 

He repeats your name back at you, and this time you know for certain that tears are filling your eyes and spilling over onto your already wet cheeks. 

“I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to lose you.” 

“You’re not going to lose me, cyar’ika. I’m not going anywhere.” You stare him down through the helmet. For a second you think you can see his eyes, maybe the faintest hint of the outline of his nose. 

“Are you ever going to tell me what cyar’ika means?” you ask him, gaze soft. He holds your stare. 

“In Mando’a, the ancient language of Mandalore, it means _darling_ or _sweetheart._ It’s really one of the more common names. I need to think of something that fits you better,” he admits. 

“That’s incredibly… sweet, Din,” you say, finally using his name. You wish you could see his face as he hears it roll off of your tongue. 

“It also means beloved,” he says, barely above the volume of a mutter, barely loud enough for you to make out. You have to actually stop and try to piece together the sounds that he made inside your head. 

“Well, then I don’t know why you would want to find a different name for me,” you say, testing the waters with him. You don’t know if he’s implying what you think he’s implying, but you don’t know why he would’ve brought it up otherwise. Maybe he just isn’t ready to actually say the words, which is perfectly okay. You don’t know if you are either. You don’t even know if you’re ready to hear them. You just want him to know that he’s allowed to have emotions about you. 

You can’t offer him much. You don’t have much to give. You still haven’t even given him your entire story, haven’t told him how you ended up in his employ or how you came to own the weapons that you do or why you got so spooked at the mention of Crimson Dawn today. You don’t know what kind of life you could have together or how it would work. You don’t know if either one of you could find rest in the other. But it’s all of the unknowns that make you feel known _,_ that make you feel like you’re facing this infinitely large galaxy with someone by your side for the first time in a _very_ long time. It makes you want to turn over your entire being to him, to focus less on what you _can’t_ offer him and more on giving him everything that you _can._

“You should put the blindfold on now,” Din says, breaking you out of your stupor. His hands have tightened around your waist, his chest somehow more firm against you. You can hear his ragged breathing through the modulator. “I think we’ve waited long enough.” 

Slowly realizing what he’s getting at, a bolt of heat rushes straight to your core. And, if he really wants to do _this,_ then you’re more than absolutely ready to give yourself over to him. To let him make you his own.

“That reminds me,” you perk up. “I have, um. A surprise for you.” 

“For me?” he asks, letting go of you as you slip off of his lap and stand in front of the bed before him. “What is it?”

“Um. Don’t freak out,” you say, but you think you’re speaking more to yourself than him. He nods in acceptance to your plea, and you take a very deep breath. Now is the time to be sexy and confident. Now is not the time to be jittery. “I just thought the both of us could use a little something special to help destress after the trip we had.” 

Din grunts as if to say _don’t remind me,_ and you put on your best seductive smirk, banishing all thoughts from your mind except for ones of sheer willpower. It’s kind of a rush, actually, knowing what you have on under his shirt but not knowing what his reaction will be.

In one fluid motion, you yank the shirt up and over your head, letting it drop to the ground at your feet. The perpetual chill of Lothal wraps around you instantly, pebbling your nipples under Din’s watchful gaze. It’s at this point that you really take in what you’ve done. 

“Fuck, you… you were wearing that under there this whole time?” he rasps.

“I may have been,” you admit. He sits for a moment, as still as a statue. You aren’t sure he hasn’t shut completely down. Then you’re being grabbed by the wrist and pulled onto the bed while he uses the momentum to propel him up. He aims straight for the bag where you keep most of your belongings, digging through it with a craze. You almost fall back from how hard you laugh at him. 

“You have something to say, sweetheart?” he taunts as he comes back towards you, placing the silk blindfold into your hands. You decide to provoke him just a little bit, squinting up at him and thinning your lips. 

“Thanks for making sure this is comfortable,” you say, lifting the silk strip to your eyes. The last thing you see before you go to tie it is Din punching the lights off so that only the light of Lothal’s moons shines in, and the silhouette of a helmet being removed. The bed shifts and your hands are knocked away, his own replacing them and making sure that the tie is secure on the back of your head. “And also convenient,” you add.

Beskar thumps against the carpeted floor as he shrugs out of his remaining armor. 

“Shit, baby, I’ve been waiting for this forever,” he groans, and you hum in agreement. You don’t really know where to look or what to do with yourself, so you lay back against the pillows, bending your knees and planting your feet on the bed in front of you. Rough hands grab your knees, softly stroking for a few seconds. Then they lift higher, higher, before coming off of your body and finding you again at your face. 

One of Din’s hands holds the back of your head, the other melding to your jawline. He raises your face, moving only a hair’s breadth each second until your lips are pressed against his. You haven’t gotten to kiss like this, all lazy and strung-out, since before Corellia. You savor each pass of his tongue against the inside of your mouth and card your fingers through his hair, pulling him impossibly closer. The bare skin of his legs and chest rub against you, and you remember that you’re the clothed one this time. Well, semi-clothed. 

His mouth leaves yours and you embarrassingly try to follow him with a whine. 

“So, do I get to unwrap my gift?” he asks, trailing a finger along your waistband. A shiver ripples up your spine and you accidentally buck up towards him. 

“Your _gift_ is getting impatient,” you say. Din chuckles, leaning up to press a kiss to your cheek. He lingers there for a second, and you turn your head to catch his lips quickly. His movements stall, though, and he hesitates. “What is it?” you whisper.

He’s quiet for a moment longer, relishing in the smooth press of your skin against his face. “I just haven’t done this in… in a really long time. I want this to be good for you.” At this point every one of your nerves is standing on edge, fraying and waiting to be touched, and you don’t know exactly what to tell him. 

“That’s okay,” you assure him, running a hand up his arm. And damn if every part of him doesn’t get you heated as you feel his muscles flexing under your fingertips. “I don’t even know how long it’s been for me. Besides, it’s with you.” You hope he gets what you’re trying to say, that there’s literally next to nothing he could do to mess this up for you. Besides, from what you remember from the last time he _almost_ fucked you, being out of practice is not a problem that’s affecting him. 

“Are you sure?” 

You sigh, before smiling at him. He can still see you, just a little bit. “Did you listen to anything I’ve told you tonight?” At your hips, his fingers resume the line that they were tracing across you. 

“I did.” His touches are featherlight and almost tickle you. “Maker, I almost don’t even have to take these off.” Splaying one hand around your hip, he trails the single finger down to your sheerly-covered pussy. You’re getting wet so fast for him, the mesh fabric sticking almost uncomfortably against you. 

“Please, please do,” you whine, your knees automatically falling open for him. His finger disappears and a cold wave hits you as your panties are pushed aside, but still not removed. 

“I’ll think about it,” he decides, bringing his single finger to glide through your slick heat. Your breath stutters on a sharp inhale. Fuck, you could get addicted to this _easily._ Part of you wants to ask him to never take his perfect hands off of you. 

You utter something along the lines of _don’t make me wait for it any longer, dammit,_ and end up with two fingers poking against your lips, pushing past and into your mouth. It’s all you can do not to moan around them, but they’re gone almost as fast as they’re there. One of them pushes into you before you can catch your breath, his free hand holding you down and rubbing your clit with his thumb. It’s been far, far too long without any sort of friction or pressure or anything, so one finger just isn’t going to cut it. 

“Not to sound too selfish,” you whimper, circling your hips around Din’s hand. “But I really, really need more right now.” 

“More what, sweetheart?” One of these days you’re going to deprive him, to wrap your hand slowly and carefully around his cock and take it as slow as you possibly can. In fact, with each rock of his finger into you, you can feel the tip of it barely brushing against your thigh, so in theory, you could just…

“Fuck, I-” You stop his train of thought, managing to reach down far enough to take him into your hand. The motion pulls him deeper into you, and your combined moans come together to tangle in the room. “That’s how it’s going to be?” 

That’s exactly how it’s going to be. You barely pick up your pace before slowing it back down again, swiping your thumb across the tip of his cock to collect the precum that dribbles out then pumping back down. He reciprocates in kind by pushing another thick finger into you, curling them up and towards him in a way that makes your legs jolt. It’s almost a race for who can come faster, but you’re so wet that you don’t think it should be physically _possible_ and you know you’re going to be gone first. 

With your unoccupied arm, you pull him down against you and into a forceful kiss, licking into his mouth. Your teeth almost clash together and it’s sloppy, but you can’t be faulted for it from the way the pads of his fingers drag against your walls and his cock pulses in your hand. Taking it one step further, Din slides in a third finger with his other two. You let go of him completely and he automatically wins the little spar for dominance that you were having as you gasp into his mouth, crying out as he manages to piston against that one specific spot that makes you see stars– no, entire constellations. Within seconds, everything in you releases and you peak, coming all over his hand. 

“ _Shh, sweetheart,_ I’ve got you,” he mumbles into your hair, reaching to cup one of your breasts through the lingerie. At this point, you don’t even know why you bothered with it. If you had any wish in the entire world, it would be to remove every existing barrier between the two of you. You would burn every square inch of clothing you own if it meant having his body pressed securely against yours. 

You’re so tight that it almost hurts when he takes his fingers out, but he seems to know exactly what you want, yanking your panties down with zero delicacy. You grab his hands and pull them up to your breasts, trying to tell him to pull that part off, too, but still too delirious to use words. 

“Damn,” he sighs. “This is the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” You whine again in response and he obliges you, reaching behind you to unclip the bra with one hand. Din helps you shrug out of it, finally exposing yourself completely to him. He’s seen you like this before, but the presence of another bare body against your own is something that you didn’t get the luxury of having. 

“How do you want to do this?” he asks you sweetly. You can practically feel the nerves radiating off of him as he bends down to suck one of your nipples into his mouth, his teeth scraping against it gently. For the second time today, you get a wicked idea. 

“Switch places with me,” you tell him, raising up onto your knees. Your hands flutter up to his shoulders, guiding him to lay against the pillows you were just on. He’s propped up enough so that he’s not flat against the bed, but not sitting up entirely straight. Once you’re sure he’s where you want him, you sling a leg over his hips and take a seat on his thighs. You can feel his breath against you, hot and filled with longing. 

You’re sick of waiting. Nothing has felt more real and tangible and alive to you than this moment, and you can’t keep yourself from reaching to grab his cock again, grinding it against the seam of your cunt. 

“Cyar’ika,” he moans. “I– stars. I thought you’d want to take this slow.” 

“This can be slow,” you negotiate. “But we can also go slow _later,_ ” you purr, reaching to suck a mark into his neck. No one will ever know it’s there, and you might never even get to see it yourself, but you’ll know it’s there. And you’re dead serious– there’s no way you can possibly limit yourself to him now that you’ve had a taste.

“Have it your way, then.”

You’re propped up on your knees, rubbing him into your clit, when suddenly you’re pulled down against his chest. The sudden jolt causes the first few inches of his cock to push up into you, and white light blinds your vision. Shit. Fuck. A million _other_ words too filthy to even think. You have to wrap both of your arms around the back of his neck, muffling your cries into his shoulder. Grabbing ahold of your hips, he finds a pace to split you open with, coming apart equally as much as you are. 

“Fucking perfect pussy,” he mumbles. “Feels so good. So g-good.” You still haven’t even registered that he’s inside of you yet, stretching you exactly like you’d always hoped he would. You haven’t taken anything this big in… years, probably, so it’s a little bit of a challenge. You trust him to guide you through it though, and turn to absolute putty in his hands. 

You roll your hips experimentally and clench in reflex to the way you feel the thick vein on the side of his cock twitch. Everything is hot and wet and _deep_ but you want it deeper, so you lean completely into him. Your tits are crushed against his chest as you push yourself further, further, and further still. He keeps a hand on you, massaging your clit to help you ease yourself down. Fucking… he’s so big that you can hardly fathom it, instead just clenching and unclenching around him. 

“Would it be okay… if I moved?” he asks timidly. You don’t give him a straight answer, but lift yourself a few inches and sink down again in response. He must get the message, grabbing onto your ass to guide you up again, then slamming you back down.

You practically scream out. “Din,” you squeal. Tears prick against your eyes again, but this time you welcome their presence. It feels so foreign to have a name associated with him. No one has called him that in so long that he had stopped counting, but here you are, throwing it out carelessly while you’re stuffed full of him.

“It’s okay,” he tells you, rocking up into you steadily. “What do you need, sweetheart?”

You don’t even know. You need him to… to push you back and spread your legs, to part your lips with his fingers and pound into you. To flip you onto your stomach and take you however he wants you. You want a million things and don’t know how to voice any of them. He feels so good inside you that you can’t even open your eyes. 

“Please,” you choke. “Please just… fuck. I don’t know. Please fuck me.” You can’t say you’re exactly proud of the puddle that he’s turned you into, but you’re too drunk on his cock to think too hard about it. 

“I’ll take care of you,” he says. Din may be doing a lot better of a job forming sentences than you are, but you’ve never heard his voice sound more strained. His strong arms are almost trembling with pleasure, gripping onto you like you’re going to float away from him. “I’ll take care of you.” 

And he does.

Within seconds, you lose almost all function in your body and hand yourself completely over to him as he fucks up into you, bottoming out with every thrust. All you can do is try to stay on top of him and meet about half of his thrusts. You’re speeding recklessly towards your upper bounds and he’s ruthless, giving you everything that you’ve wanted for so long. 

It’s all feelings and sensations. His fingertips gripping into your skin. Your nails scratching on his scalp. The pull of your nipples against the bare expanse of his chest. The tear of his name from your lungs, burning as they struggle to take in enough air. 

His thrusts get more haphazard and he pulls you down harder against him, repeating your name over and over. “Gonna feel me in you for days, pretty girl,” he whispers in your ear. And that’s exactly your plan. Your knees dig into the mattress and you glue yourself to him, your entire lower body clamping down as you reach your peak. 

You come for the second time tonight, writhing against him and dissolving into moans that consist of nothing more than his name and something akin to a prayer. The sudden clench of your pussy around him gets to him and works like a charm, and you feel the hot spurts inside you as he fucks his cum into you. He keeps you like that until you feel like leaking out between your thighs and back down onto him. 

You’re so tired, and your body feels so. Heavy. You know you’ll be over it in a minute or two, but you just feel pure exhaustion as he lifts your head to kiss you softly, conveying everything that he too doesn’t have the physical strength to say.

 _Thank you,_ it says. _You are my home._ He presses kisses against every part of you that he can reach, never once letting his body leave yours.

You spend the next few hours showing him just how welcome he is.

* * *

You come out of the bedroom sometime in the middle of the night, desperate for a glass of water. Pale moonlight comes in through the cracks between the blinds in the living room, and you quietly pad over to the window, very slowly from the forming ache in your hips. You think Din’s asleep, having worn himself out. You were practically asleep yourself, earlier.

With your pointer finger, you slowly lift up one of the blinds to peer out from between them. The apartment is higher up than you’d realized, and you can see for what looks like miles out of the city. It’s the first time you’ve looked out a window in a long time and not seen the white streaks of hyperspace, and it really brings you back down from where you’d found your way into the clouds from all the commotion of the day. 

As you look out across the vast plains of Lothal towards a sky that’s freckled with millions of twinkling stars, you get to thinking. Maybe, one day, if your life is like _this,_ you could be at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe hehhehe heheheh eehehehehe.... 
> 
> i stayed up until 4 am last night writing that, so i really hope you all like it. i did end up taking a couple of... liberties.... with Lothal. oops. :) 
> 
> please always feel free to come talk to me in the comments or on my [tumblr!](https://sunsetkenobi.tumblr.com)
> 
> **obligatory note that my update schedule is posted in the left sidebar of my tumblr's desktop theme**
> 
> sources:  
> [SW Galaxy Map](http://www.swgalaxymap.com/)  
> (i used this to help calculate the distances)  
> [Lothal](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lothal)  
> [Corellian Tanamen Fever](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corellian_Tanamen_Fever)  
> [Ryloth](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ryloth)  
> [Cushnip](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cushnip)  
> [Crimson Dawn](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Crimson_Dawn)  
> [Ferrocrete](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ferrocrete/Legends)


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